Facts and falsehoods concerning the war on the South 1861-1865

LINCOLN ROOM

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY

I

^^

Facts and Falsehoods

Concerning the War

on the South

1861-1865

By George Edmonds

PRICE, 50 CENTS

FOR SALE BY

A. R. TAYLOR & CO.,

MEMPHIS TENN.

Copyright. 1904, By Spence Hall 1,amb.

To the People of the South

This little work is offered. It does not aspire to the dignity
of History. It is mostly a collection of facts under one cover,
which I trust will prove of use to the future historians of the
South. Perhaps the fittest title to this work would be "A Pro-
test Against Injustice" — the injustice of misrepresentation — of
false charges — of lies. The feeling of injustice certainly in-
spired the idea of this work. The greater number of the facts
herein laid before the reader were not drawn from Southern
or Democratic sources, but from high Republican authorities.
Part first of this work presents Abraham Lincoln to the people
of this generation as his contemporaries saw and knew him.
The characteristics portrayed will be a revelation to many
readers. As an offset to the falsity of Republican histories of
the war of the 6o's, permit me to express the hope that in the
near future our people will make more general use of those
histories which are triithful and just to the South. For in-
stance, the English historian, Percy Gregg's large history of
the United States, might be condensed, or rather that part giv-
ing the story of the 6o's couKl be detached, and published in
one small, cheap volume, so that every family in the South can
own a copy. John A. Marshall's large volume. "American
Bastiles," can be used in every Southern school to rouse in the
hearts of boys and girls hatred of Despotism. .S. D. Car-
penter's "Logic of History," and ]\Tatthew Carey's "Democratic
Handbook" should not be allowed to go out of print. Both of
these books contain much that will be of great value to the
future historian.

1 .

You may fool all the people part of the time,
You may fool some of the people all the time,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.

— Abraham Lincoln.

"All lies have sentence of death written against them in
Heaven's Chancery itself, and slowly or fast, advance inces-
santly toward their hour." — Carlyle.

I sing the hymn of the Conquered who fell in the battle of life,

The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the

strife ;
Not the jubilant song of the Victors for whom the resounding acclaim
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of

fame.
While the voice of the world shouts its chorus, its paeon for those

who have won.
While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breezt

and the sun.
Gay banners are waving, hands clapping and hurrying feet
Throwing after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the field of

Defeat.
Speak History! Who are Life's victors? Unroll thy long annals

and say,
Are they those whom the world called the victors, who won the success

of a day?
The Martyrs or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae's tryst
Or the I'ersians and Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? Pilate or

Christ?

— W. W. STORY.
Blackwood's Magazine, 1881.

n

Authorities. *

The following are cited as some of the authorities for the
matters stated in the pages of this little book and here sum-
marized for brevity :

1. — The Olive Branch, by Carey, Boston, 1814.

2. — The Pelham Papers, published 1796, in the Connecticut Courant,

Hartford.
3. — The Logic of History — S. D. Carpenter, 1864, Editor Wisconsin

Patriot.
4. — History of the United States — John Clark Ridpath, 1880.
5. — Notes on History of Slavery in Massachusets — George H. Moore,

1866.
6. — History of the Negro Race in America, 1883 — George W. Wil-
liams, first colored member of the Ohio Legislature, and late
Judge Advocate of the Grand Army of the Republic of Ohio.
7. — Abraham Lincoln — Norman Hapgood, 1899.
8. — Abraham Lincoln — J. G. Holland, 1865, Editor Scribner.
9.— Abraham Lincoln — Ida Tarbell.
10 — American Conflict — By Horace Greeley, Editor New York Tribune.
11.— Life of Lincoln— John T. Morse, 1892.
12. — Life of O. P. Morton, Governor of Indiana, William Dudley

Foulk, 1899.
13.— History of the United States— Benjamin E. Andrews, 1894,

President Brown University.
14.— Life of Hannibal Hamlin.

15.— The Story of the Civil War— John Codman Ropes, 1894.
16. — Disunion and Reunion — Woodrow Wilson, 1893, Professor in
Princeton University, New Jersey.
*17.— The Real Lincoln— Charles L. C. Minor, 1901.
18.— Lincoln and Men of the War Time— A. K. McClure, 1892.
19.— Our Presidents and How We Make Them— A. K. McClure, 1900.
20. — Life of Lincoln — Nicolay and Hay, 1890.
*21. — American Bastiles — John A. Marshall, 1882.
22.— History of the United States— James Ford Rhodes, 1893.
23. — My Diary, North and South — William Howard Russell, published

originally in the London Times during the War.
24. — Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, 1885.
25. — The Great Conspiracy — General John A. Logan.
26.— Men Who Saved the Union— General Don Piatt. 1887.
27.— Butler's Book— General B. F. Butler (Beast Butler), 1892.
28. — Executive Power — Benjamin R. Curtis, Judge United States

Supreme Court.
29. — Lalor's Encyclopedia — Edited by John J. Lalor, 1881.
30.— William H. Seward— Frederick Bancroft, 1900.
31. — True Story of a Great Life — William H. Herndon and Jesse
William Weik, 1889.
*32. — Democratic Speaker's Handbook — Matthew Carey, Jr., 1868.
33. — Life of Abraham Lincoln — Joseph Barrett and Charles W. Brown,

1902.
34. — Nullification and Secession in the United States. — E. P. Powell,

1897.
35. — Suppressed Life of Abraham Lincoln, by William H. Herndon,

published soon after Lincoln's death.
36. — Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Ward H. Lamon, 1872.
37. — Story of the Great March — George W. Nichols, Aid de Camp
to General Sherman, 1865.
*38. — Southern Historical Papers.
*These are Southern and Democratic. .Ml the ottiers are Northern and Republican.

ill.

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER I.— P. I.
Abraham Lincoln.

CHAPTER n.— P. 5.

A glance over the country's situation at the moment of Lin-
coln's death. Republicans drunk with joy. Their vindictive
policy. They fear and distrust Andrew Johnson.

CHAPTER TH.— P. 8.
The apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln ; its cause and effect.

CHAPTER IV.— P. 12.
The estimate Republican leaders held of the living Lincoln.

CHAPTER v.— P. 16.

Wendell Phillips' estimate of Lincoln. Secretary of War
Stanton's opinion. The Wade and Winter Davis manifesto.
Stanton's first interview with Lincoln. His insulting treat-
ment of Lincoln. General McClellan's letters to his wife.
Lincoln reads Artemas Ward at Cabinet meeting. Chase's
disgust. Lincoln's hilarity. Why did Lincoln appoint
Stanton Cabinet Minister? Seward on United States Consti-
tution.

1 V .

CHAPTER VI.— P. 23.

A Western Republican paper propounds the true Republican
doctrine.

CHAPTER VH.— P. 30.

Grant and Washburn defy Lincoln's authority . Washburn
bullies Lincoln. A United States Senator bullies Lincoln. Senator
Wade storms at him.. Senator Hale assails him. Congress
distrusts him. Rev. M. Fuller's opinion of Lincoln. Lincoln's
trickery.

CHAPTER VHL— P. 34.
Herndon's pen portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A Springfield
lawyer's pen portrait. General Piatt on "Pious Lies." The
"real Lincoln disappears from human knowledge." Hern-
don's "Life of Lincoln." Why suppressed. Extracts from sup-
pressed book.

CHAPTER IX.— P. 43.
Lincoln's jealousy. His passion for horse races, cock fights
and fist fights. Holland's comment thereon. Lincoln the "soul
of honesty." He passes off counterfeit money. His "tender-
heartedness." He sews up hogs' eyes. "The Old Huzzy." A
great fight. "I am the big buck of the lick."

CHAPTER X.— P. 52.

Mr. Lincoln hates and despises Christianity. He goes to church
to mock and deride "pious lies." Holland's strange story. Other
Republican leaders despise Christianity. The four Ws.

CHAPTER XL— P. 60.
Lincoln's singular treatment of the lady he four times asked
to marry him. His curious letter about that lady. His cruel
treatment of Miss Todd. His home a hell on earth.

CHAPTER XIL— P. e^j.

Mr. Lincoln's passion for indecent stories. Holland's comment
thereon. The "foulest in stories of any other man." Governor
Andrews' disgust. Lincoln writes indecent things. He dislikes
ladies^ society.

CHAPTER XIIL— P. 73.

Lincoln and Lamon visit Antietam battlefield. Lincoln calls
for comic songs; Lamon sings "Picayune Butler." General Mc-
Clellan shocked. The- Perkins' letter. Mr. Lincoln's reply.

V.

CHAPTER XIV.— P. 78.

The true and the false. Apotheosizing writers. Miss Tarbell
takes the lead. Why Lincoln's father left Kentucky. Apotheo-
sis twaddle. Two little g^irls in the White House. More twaddle.
A study of Lincoln's character.

CHAPTER X\'.— P. 86.

A brief mention of the two policies. President Johnson and
the Republican leaders.

PART II

CHAPTER XVL— P. 91.

Antagonistic principles. The great American monarchist.
Federalists fear and hate Democracy. War on the South began
in 1796. The Olive Branch. The Pelham papers. Xew En-
gland begins work for disunion and secession in 1796.

CHAPTER XVH.— P. 100.

Republicans cover up the real cause of the war. X^ew En-
gland secessionists. Their determination to dissolve the L'nion.
Early and universal belief in the right of secession.

CHAPTER XXTH.— P. 107.
New England's effort to secede in 1812. 1814. and 181 5.

CHAPTER XIX.— P. 126.
More evidence of X^ew England's disunion and secession work.

CHAPTER XX.— P. 131.

X^ew England's three hates still active. The Republican party
organized 1854. Ambassador Choate bears false witness.

CHAPTER XXL— P. 135.

Save the Union, free the slaves, the pretext, not the purpose, of
the war on the South. Real cause, hatred of Democracy.

CHAPTER XXIL— P. 151.
Republicans ascend to power. Lincoln and Seward make am-
biguous speeches. Web.ster Davis on the carnage of the Avar.
Seward's remarkable letter to Lincoln. Nicolay and Hay's
comment on Seward's letter. A moral j^ervcrt.

V i.

CHAPTER XXIIL— P. i6o.

Seward's falsehoods. Treachery blacker than Benedict Ar-
nold's. Lincoln confesses that he, at Medill's demand, made
war on the South.

CHAPTER XXIV.— P. 163.

Greeley opposes war. He declares the right of the South to
independence and the right of secession. Why Lincoln did not
sooner begin the war. Why Buchanan did not begin it.

CLIAPTER XXV.— P. i5».

Almost universal opposition to war in the Northern States.
Indiana longs for peace. Morton's "desperate fidelity." "I am
the State." Congressman Cameron's bosh on the ''life of the
nation." Nicolay and Hay's bosh on treason.

CHAPTER XXVL— P. 181.

Why Grant refused to exchange prisoners. Grant compares
Xorthern and Southern soldiers. Desertions from the Union
Army. Riots. Arbitrary arrests. "Suspects." Thirty-eight
thousand men and women locked up in Northern jails. Civil
law overthrown. Lincoln disliked and distrusted. The peoples'
indictment in 1864. Judiciary opposes Lincoln.

CHAPTER XXML— P. 188.

What a battle meant to Lincoln. Greeley prays Lincoln for
peace. Rosecrans and Halleck on the peoples' hatred of the
war. Soldiers dislike Lincoln. Judge Curtis on Lincoln's usur-
pation of power. Republican writers, Rhodes, Moore, Hapgood,
Bancroft and others, laud despotism.

CHAPTER XXMIL— P. 199.

Lincoln's eagerness for re-election. His unlawful use of the
United States Army. Butler and Dana testify. Lincoln's crime
against the ballot box and American freedom. Republican writ-
ers unfit teachers of American boys.

«

CHAPTER XXIX.— P. 209.

Mr. Vallandingham's case. Unhappy condition of North-
ern Democracy under despotism. Lincoln lays down the lines
of despotism.

v i i .

CHAPTER XXX.— P. 217.
Was the war waged to free slaves? Lincoln on the negro.
\'an Buren. Lamon's evidence. Wendell Phillips. Lincoln's
letter to Greeley. Seward's indifference to the negroes' fate.
Grant's opinion. Conway's letter.

CHAPTER XXXL— P. 220.
The reconstruction period. Hate and cruelty.

CHAPTER XXXn.— P. 228.
Hate.

CHAPTER XXXHL— P. 265.
New England's strange malady of the mind.

Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the
War on the South, 1861-1865.

PART I

Chapter I.

"Abraham Lincoln has Long Since Entered the Sublime Realm
of Apotheosis. Where Now is the Man so Rash as to Warm-
ly Criticise Abraham Lincoln f" — St. Louis Globc-Detnocral ,
March 6, 1898.

The above sentence from one of the ablest Republican news-
fiapers in the country is perhaps a little terser and stronger than
the usual statement regarding the position Republicans are deter-
mined Lincoln shall hold in the minds of men, but truly repre-
sents the reverential attitude which is held toward Lincoln, not
only by Republicans, but by men of all political parties. He has
"entered the realm of apotheosis"— to criticise him unfavorably
is resented by RepubHcans as sacrilegious, and of every hundred,
ninety and nine either believe that Lincoln is the demi-god he
is said to be, or they pretend to believe it, and go their wav, thus
giving their sanction to the apotheosis referred to by the Globe-
Democrat. Even in the South the real Lincoln is lost sight of in
the rush and bustle of our modern life, and many Southerners ac-
cept the opinion of Lincoln that is furnished them ready made
by writers who are either ignorant, or else who purposely falsify
plain facts of history. To such extent has this proneness to accept
fiction for fact gone, this proneness to take ready-made opinions
from others, that even in Mississippi the proposition has been se-

2 Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap, i

rionsly made to place a portrait of Lincoln in the halls of the State
Capitol. No doubt the Mississippi legislator who proposed the
Lincoln portrait flatters himself that he was displaying a broad
and liberal spirit ; ignorant of the facts, he believed Lincoln was a
man of i)i:re and lofty spirit, a patriot moved by a noble impulse
to serve and save his country, therefore worthy of Southern as
well as Northern admiration. Certainly no right thinking man
would erect a statue or put a portrait in their legislative hall of
a self-seeking, cunning, coarse-minded politician, a man scorned
by his own official family and by the most powerful and prominent
of his Republican contemporaries. Amid the universal din of
praise that it has become the fashion to sing of Lincoln, only the
student remembers the real facts, only the student knows not only
that the Lincoln of the popular imagination of today bears lit-
tle or no resemblance to the real Lincoln, but that the deification
of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the members of his
own party, by men who but a few short hours before Booth's
bullet did its deadly work at Ford's theater, were reviling him
as a buffoon, a coarse, vulgar jester. History affords no strang-
er spectacle than this, that today, nearly forty years after his
death, the American people, North and South, have come to re-
gard almost as a god a man who, when living, and up to the very
hour of his death, was looked upon with contempt by nearly every
man of his own party who intimately knew him, even by members
of his Cabinet, by Senators, Congressmen, preachers and plain cit-
izens. The unthinking, who do not care to correct mistaken views
of historical characters, may as well throw this book aside, but
those who prefer Facts to Falsehoods will, the author believes,
feel repaid by reading on to the end. Nearly every statement
will be substantiated by high Republican authority, the great part
made by the closest friends of Mr. Lincoln, men who cannot be
deemed prejudiced against him. In another issue, the Globe-
Democrat says :

"One thing is certain, Lincoln was apotheosized after
his death. Had he lived 4000 years ago his name would now
be enrolled among the gods of Greece and Rome."

The first part of this announcement is true. The ceremony
of Lincoln's apotheosis zi'as performed soon after his death.
The second part may be doubted. The men of ancient Greece
and Rome whom their fellow mortals enrolled among the gods,
were given that honor, either for some bold, bad, or good achieve-
ment. History affords no instance of any mortal having gained god-

Chap, i Facts and Falsehoods. . ^

ship as Lincoln did. The men who bestowed that honor upon
Lincoln, though of his own party, though having known him
well during his Presidential life, had during that period openly
disliked, despised, and distrusted him, and had persistently lav-
ished upon him the most "venomous detractions" the English
language afforded. These facts will be proved by indisputable
evidence. Why the Republican leaders who had always "ven-
omously vituperated" the living Lincoln, the hour after his
death made frantic haste to perform the apotheosis ceremony,
and hoist their dead President up to the sublime realm of the
gods, it is the purpose of the writer to show. We entreat the
reader not to make the mistake of supposing that the apotheosis
ceremony was a mere holiday afifair gotten up to amuse or aston-
ish the public. Its conception was a flash of genius. It was the
last act of the dreadful tragedy of war, and the prelude of polit-
ical plans of deep and far-reaching importance. The apothe-
osis ceremony and its successful upholding during all the years
fthirty-eight) since Lincoln's death, has done more to prolong
the power of the Republican party than its victories and con-
quest of the South. The old saying that "facts are stranger than
fiction" is as true as it is trite. The most fertile fictionist earth
ever produced has never created so unique, so incongruous, so
unparalleled a character as was Abraham Lincoln, mentally,
morally and physically, nor has the most inventive ever thought
out so unexampled a career as was his from cradle to cof-
fin bed. Nor could the most ingenious romancer, delving in his
closet, have devised so original, so daring a scheme and so suc-
cessfully carried it out as that apotheosis ceremony, planned on
the spur of the moment by the Republican leaders, confused,
confounded, alarmed as they were by the sudden taking-oflF of
their first President. Although the writer of this has no au-
thentic account of any secret caucus held by the Republican
leaders in ^^^ashington City at the time of Mr. Lincoln's death,
their entire unity of action in the unexpected emergency that
confronted them is presumptive evidence that a caucus was
held, almost before Mr. Lincoln's body was cold ; that plans
were made and secret instructions sent forth to the foremost
men of the party, advising them of the course necessary to
pursue, the tone, the attitude, it was the duty of every man to
assume toward their dead President. The men composing the
caucus saw as by a flash of lightning the vital necessity of conceal-
ing from the world {hq opinions they and their whole party had

4 Facts and Faf-skhoods. Ciiai'. i

- <

held of the living Lincoln. The preservation of party power
v^'as their first thought. They saw the black gnlf into which
their triumphant party would sink unless swift measures were
taken. They realized the fact that if their President were
known to the world as they knew him, the glory of their vic-
tory would fade ; as he stood, so their party would stand. If he was
despised, they and their party would be despised. If made
public, every venomous word they had flung on the living
Lincoln would rebound on their party. To exalt the dead
President became the vital necessity of the hour. The passion
of the Republican heart is to possess power. They had won
power through seas of blood ; to lose it now would be anguish
to their very souls. To exalt .to the high realm of godship
the dead man they had in life despised as the dirt under their
feet, was the first thought that darted on their agitated brains.
To bury with their dead President's body every mental and
physical quality which had so prominently distinguished him
from his kind, and which had provoked from them so many
gibes and jeers and contemptuous flings, was the first duty
they saw before them ; the next was to manufacture an effigy
of their dead President, clothe it from head to heels in attri-
butes the very reverse of those the living President had been
clothed in, and then boldly, under the wide light of the Nineteenth
Century, start that effigy, that fake of their own creation, down
the ages, labeled:

"Abraham Lincoln, First President of the Republican
party, the greatest, wisest, godliest man that has appeared
on earth since Christ."

The reader is warned not to commit the grievous mis-
take of dismissing this statement as a fairy tale, or the mistake
of fancying that its truth or falsity is of small moment. After
a close and critical study of the case, the writer of this believes
that the Republican party, • from the death of Lincoln to
this day. is chiefly supported by the fictions put forth in that
apotheosis ceremony. These fictions, told and retold so often,
have become almost the faith of the world. The writer holds
that belief in falsehood is always injurious to humanity, and
that the highest duty we owe to humanity is to put truth in
the place of lies. When the apotheosis theory ceases to govern
historians, and the real facts of the war of the 6o's are laid before
the world. Republican history of the war will sink out of sight as
worthless rubbish.

Chaf'. 2 Facts and Falsehoods.

Chapter II.
A Glance 07'er the Country's Situation at the Moment of Lincoln's
Death. Republicans' Drunken Joy. Their Vindictive Policy.
They Fear and Distrust Andrezv Johnson.

Tlie awful war was cikIccI ; the South had surrendered her
anus and lay prostrate at her conqueror's feet, bleeding at every
pore. Her soldiers (those not buried on battlefields) were slowly
wending- their way over their devastated country toward their de-
vastated homes, shoeless, ragged, hungry, as they had so often been
while bravely fronting and fighting the foe ; they trudged onward
and Southward sadder than night itself. How dififerent their con-
(iuerors! These were feeding themselves fat at the grand feast
of success ; were quaffing deep of the wine of victory. Lamon.
the constant companion of Lincoln, has left on record the story
of Lincoln's iov. Lamon savs :

"Everybody was happy ; the President's spirits rose to a
height rarely witnessed : he was unable to restrain himself."
So unable, the irascible Stanton called him to order, with a
severe reprimand, as will be related later on. Lamon says:

"An informal Cabinet meeting was held, and how to dis-
pose of the traitors was discussed. Most of the members
were for hanging them. Lincoln was then asked for his opin-
ion and replied by relating a story.

"I once," said Lincoln, "saw a boy holding a coon by a
string. 'What have you got?' I asked. 'It's a coon,' re-
plied the boy- 'Last night Dad cotched six coons. He killed
them all but this poor little cuss. Dad told me to hold him
till he got back, and Fm afeared he's going to kill this one
too. Oh, I do wish he'd get away.' 'Why don't you let him
loose?' I asked. 'If I let him loose Dad'll give me hell.'
said the boy. 'Now,' said Lincoln, 'if Jefif Davis and the
other fellows will only get away themselves it will bo all right.
but if I catch them and let them loose, Dad'll give me hell.' " •

It was Lincoln's nature to make light of the crudest trage-
dies, to find amusement in the awfulest horrors. The anguish,
the agonies of the four years' war, the slaughter of 700,000 men
who wore the blue, and more than half as many who wore the
grav. Lincoln could jovial! v liken to catching six coons, the killing
of five, and the captivity of one. Not one particle of pity went
out to the condition of the conquered. On the contrary, their

6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 2

thoughts and energies were at work devising plans to still further
make wretched their conquered foe. In all the long and woeful
history of man's inhumanity to man, I know of nothing to equal
the virulence, the vindictiveness of hate manifested by Republican
leaders after the South's surrender.

■'We've got 'em down at last !" was the exultant boast.
"What next?" "They are ours by the law of conquest," said
another, "ours to rule as conquerors rule." "We'll grind
them down to the very mire of degradation," said another.
"We'll crush every atom of rebel spirit from their rebel
hearts. We'll wipe out their State lines and make territories
under military rulers ; w^e'll confiscate their land, cut it up into
forty-acre lots, and give it to the negroes. We'll enfranchise
the blacks, disfranchise the whites, and set ex-slaves masters
over ex-masters." "But," said another, "Fve heard it whis-
pered that the President means to be merciful to the Rebs."
"The President!" was the sinister rejoinder. "In the future,
as in the past, our will, not his, be done."

Even as they spoke the sound of Booth's bullet smote upon
their ears and for a moment they were dumb. True, they had
never loved their first President. True, they had scorned him
and reviled him, but they knew him, knew how far they could
move him to go their way. They never forgot that before his
election to the Presidency he had in a speech in Con-
gress declared the right of secession, the right of the South
to independence, and they knew how the imperialists of
their party had easily induced him to recede from secession
and State rights, and take up the imperial idea that seces-
sion is a monstrous political crime, to punish which war was in-
augurated and the whole Southland drenched in blood. This pli-
able President was dead; how would it be with his successor?
Could they put the bit in his mouth and guide him the way they
intended to go? Andrew Johnson was to them an unknown quan-
tity. Would he be willing to wipe out State lines in the South and
set over the people military rulers. Would he adopt the policy of
confiscation? Would he see the utility of sinking the white men
and women of the South into a deeper degradation than the yellow
race on the Pacific coast are held in by the white? Putting a
proud people, accustomed to dominance and freedom, imder the
black heels of savages from Africa would he a feat of such su-
preme and unspeakable despotism as neither pagan or Christian
conquerors ever before attempted. This feat they were determin-

Chap. 2 Facts and Falsehoods. 7

ed to accomplish. They knew tliat Andrew Johnson was a rene-
gade from the South. They knew that he had been born and reared
in the school of Democracy, which they hated and despised. They
knew he had played traitor to the State of his birth, to the party
which had honored him with the highest office in the State. Thev
knew in the awful time which tried the souls of his people he had
been false to them, false to kith and kin and blood, had fled north-
ward and thrown himself into the arms of their deadliest foes.
They knew when their first President let slip the bloody dogs of
war, the triple traitor from Tennessee had sicked on those dogs,
shouting as they leaped southward :

"On. Lion! On, Wolf! On, Tiger! Catch! Tear!
Devour !"

They well knew Johnson's treachery to his own people had
left a gulf between him and them, a grewsome gulf filled with the
blood and bones of slaughtered men. Could any bridge span a
gulf like that ? Would not that gulf forever hold the traitor from
Tennessee aw'ay from his own people, his own country? Why
then did fear steal upon their souls ? They had heard it said that
"the teachings of childhood are never wholly obliterated."
What, if in some secret recess of Johnson's heart one spark, one
single spark of Democracy's fire was left? What if that spark
should revive? Should glow with life? Should break into
flame? Should flare backward over the four years of Republican
rule? Backward, shedding a lurid light over the horrors, the
agonies, the anguish of the thousand battlefields, and the rivers of
blood? Over the moans and groans of the wounded and dying?
All these lay along the track of the four years of war. Added
to these were the outrages to freedom, free speech stifled, the
press choked breathless, the Constitution kicked into the Capitol
cellar, habeas corpus bound hand and foot, the Supreme
Court set aside as naught, the old Bourbon infamy, letres-de-
cachet, resurrected from the ruins of the Bourbon Bastile, and
brought to this country to rule in the North as it ruled in France
300 years ago ; 38,000 of its victims yet lay in dungeon cells.
What if these sights and sounds should stir the heart of that trait-
or from Tennessee and he should come to feel that blood is thick-
er than water, and his strong right arm should strike forth com-
mandingly, and his strident voice say to them, the conquerors:
"It is enough ! Stay now thine hand."

Could they bear this from the renegade Democrat of Ten-
nessee? Was not the South theirs by the law of conquest?
Theirs by the decree of the god of war? Before their excited

8 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 3

minds flashed the possibiHty of many things. What if speech and
press should be again freed? What if the words of contempt,
the vituperations, the abusive epithets they had so viciously
hurled upon their President while he was alive, with which the air
in and around Washington was thick, should be seized by a
freed press, pilloried in a thousand columns and sent broadcast
over the world ? Would not their party shrivel under the expos-
ure? It is said in the face of great danger Thought acts with
lightning speed. Hardly had those alarmed Republicans asked of
one another, "How escape the avalanche of calamities that
threaten us?" ere the road to safety was lumined before their
eyes. The apotheosis project was devised and so successfully
carried out, even Democrats of the South and of the North are
taken in by its falsehoods and often join Republicans in singing
praises to the man whom in life his own party scorned and de-
rided.

Chapter III.

The Apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln, Its Cause and Effect.

McClure and other Republican writers inform us that two
men, Mr. William H. Herndon and Ward H. Lamon, from youth
up, were the closest friends to Mr. Lincoln, were trusted friends
in the days of Lincoln's poverty and insignificance, devoted,
grateful friends in the days of his power and high fortune. Both
Herndon and Lamon wrote a biography of the man they loved.
The highest Republican authorities testify that these two men pro-
duced by far the best story of Lincoln's life ever published. Not
a man has ever denied or doubted the honesty, fairness or truth
of these two writers. I am particular in this matter, as I shall
quote liberally from these authors. McClure's Lincoln, page -46,
has this :

"Lamon was selected by Mr. Lincoln to accompany him
to Washington City, as a protector from assassination. Mr.
Lincoln appointed Mr. Lamon United States Marshal of the
District of Columbia, that he might always have him at
hand." Schouler (good Republican authority) in his His-
tory says, "Lamon, as Marshal, made himself the bodyguard
of the man he loved."

During his stay in Washington City, Lamon was Mr. Lin-
coln's closest friend ; into his ears Lincoln poured all his little

Chap. 3 Facts and Falsehoods. 9

and big troubles. Lamon has left an account of the curious pro-
ceedings which took place immediately after Lincoln's death.
We extract the following:

"The ceremony of Mr. Lincoln's apotheosis was planned
and executed by men who were unfriendly to him while he
lived. The deification took place with showy magnificence ;
men who had exhausted the resources of their skill and in-
genuity in venomous detractions of the living Lincoln were
the first, after his death, to undertake the task of guarding
his memory, not as a human being, but as a god."

On another page Lamon gives specimens of the "venomous
detractions" which the apotheosizers of the dead Lincoln had
lavished on the living. Members of the Cabinet were in the
habit of referring to President Lincoln as —

"The baboon at the other end of the avenue."
Senators referred to him as —

"That damned idiot in the White House."
Other specimens of "venomous detractions" will be given
later on. Of the apotheosis ceremony, Lamon continues thus :

"There was the fiercest rivalry as to who should can-
onize Mr. Lincoln in the most solemn words ; who should
compare him to the most sacred character in all history. He
was prophet, priest and king, he was Washington, he
was Moses, he was likened to Christ the Redeemer, he was
likened unto God. After that came the ceremony of
apotheosis."

And this was the work of men who never spoke of the living
Lincoln except with jeers and cbntempt. Lamon says this "ven-
omous detraction" was known to Mr. Lincoln ; the detractors
took no pains to conceal it until after Lincoln's death, when it
became a political necessity to pose him as the "greatest, wisest,
godliest man that ever lived." Of the way such detractions
wounded Mr. Lincoln's feelings, Lamon speaks as follows :

"Mr. Lincoln was so outraged by the obloquies, so
stung by the disparagements, his existence was rendered so
unhappy, that his life became almost a burden to him. I
went one day to his office and found him lying on the sofa,
greatly distressed. Jumping to his feet, he said: 'You
know, Lamon, better than any living man, that from my boy-
hood up my ambition wae to be President, but look at me ;
I wish I hftd never been born ! I would rather be dead than

lo Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 3

as President thus abused in the house of my friends.' The
tragic death of Mr. Lincoln brought a more fearful panic to
his traducers than to his friends."

The reason of this is plain. The few true friends about Mr.
Lincoln were not politicians. Lamon loved Lincoln for himself,
faults and all, and possibly for the favors bestowed upon him.
The Republican politicians about him detested Lincoln personal-
ly and had little or no respect for his mental ability, but the mo-
ment after Lincoln's death they saw how disastrous it would be
for their party and themselves should the public come to know
of the low estimate in which they had held their first President.
Continuing the apotheosis subject, Lamon makes the following
remarkable statement:

"For days and nights after the President's death it was
considered treason to be seen in public wdth a smile on your
face. Men who ventured to doubt the ineffable purity and
saintliness of Lincoln's character, were pursued by mobs of
men. beaten to death with paving stones, or strung up by the
neck to lamp posts until dead."

Who were the men back of these crimes? Who were they
who in secret conclave decreed that a smile on the face should be
punished as high treason? Who w^ere they whose fine diplomatic
art contrived to gather mobs on the street and then stirred them
up to the madness of beating men to death with paving stones or
hanging them on lamp posts until dead? For what object were
these desperate measures resorted to? The Republican writers
inform us that almost without exception, every Republican wdio
knew Mr. Lincoln personally, not only failed to see his greatness,
but w^ere so impressed by his littleness as to be anxious to depose
him. and put a dictator in his place. B. F. Butler, in his book,
says several men w^ere talked of for the dictatorship. Edwin
Stanton more than once proposed to General McClellan to seize
the reins of government and make himself dictator. Butler says :

"There was a crop of dictators ; each party wanted the
man. The zealous abolitionists wanted Fremont. The prop-
erty men of the country wanted a property man. The X'ew
York Times, in an elaborate editorial, proposed that George
Law, an extensive manufacturer of New York, should be dic-
tator."

Lamon says Line Din was well posted as to these dictator

Chap. 3 Facts and Falsehoods. ii

plots. So widespread was the dissatisfaction with Lincoln, so
hig:h and influential were the men en,c:ac:ed in the plots, no man at
the time offered any ohjection. no man, no Republican paper
Cthat we can learn of) dcnoiMiced the project as treason, or the
projectors as traitors. No man iirs^ed, in opposition, the ability
and fitness of Mr. Lincoln. At that time, as all through the
dreadful four years' war, the word "traitor" was bv Republi-
cans only applied to men who did not advocate the war of con-
quest on the South. The slightest word indicating a belief that
the war was not just or was unnecessarily cruel, was enough to
brand a man as a traitor deserving a dungeon cell. Among the
distinguished men who distru.sted Lincoln's ability, who scorned
and reviled him, were Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P.
Chase. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Vice President Hanni-
bal ITamlin, Secretary of State Seward. Fremont. Senators Simi-
ncr, Tnunbull. Ben Wade, of Ohio, Henry Wilson, of Massa-
chusetts, Thaddeus Stevens. Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phil-
lips. Winter Davis, Horace Greeley. Chandler of ?^Tichigan. and
hosts of others- Yet all of these (with the exception of Greeley)
immediately after the apotheosis ceremony deemed it for the
good of their part}' and themselves to bury out of sight every "ve-
nomous detraction" they had lavished on the living President and
forthwith to put themselves into a reverential attitude toward the
dead man and force upon the world the belief that Lincoln had
been their wise and trusted ruler, their guide, their head, their
Moses who had led them out of the awful W^ilderness of War. So
far as I can discover. Greelev was the only Republican \vho did
not make a sudden jump from distrust and contempt to adoration.
Zack Chandler, of Michigan, who had much to do with pushing
Lincoln on to coercion, was among the number who were eager
to depose Lincoln and put a dictator in his place. It was Chand-
ler, who, before it became evident that Lincoln was determined on
war, while more than two-thirds of the people in the Northern
States denounced the bare idea of coercion, wrote these sinister
words :

"This Union will not be worth a curse without a little
blood-letting."

Although Lincoln had gratified Chandler by letting the blood,
and dav by day was still letting it from thousands of brave young
hearts. Chandler was dissatisfied and wanted Lincoln removed and
a dictator put in his place.

12 Facts axd Fai.sehoods. Chap.

CHAPTER IV.

The Estimate Republican Leaders Held of the Living Lincoln

In his history of the United States, Vol. R'.. page 520, Rhodes
makes the sweeping assertion that —

"Lincohi's contemporaries failed to perceive his great-
ness."'

Other Republican writers make the same statement. Yet
none attempted to explain why those who best knew Mr.
Lincoln failed to esteem or respect him. Chase, while in his
Cabinet, had every opportunity to know Lincoln well. Tarbell
says :

"Mr. Chase was never able to realize Mr. Lincoln's
greatness." *

McClure savs :

"Chase was the most irritating fly in the Lincoln oint-
ment."

Tu their voluminous life of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay have
this :

"Even to complete strangers Chase cotdd not write with-
out speaking slightingly of President Lincoln. He kept up
this habit till the end of Lincoln's life. Chase's attitude to-
ward the President varied between the limits of active
brutality and benevolent contempt."

Yet Nicolay and Hay, and all other Republican writers,
rate Mr. Chase very high as a man of honesty, talent, and patriot-
ism. The reader must bear in mind that every Republican
writer since the year i860 uses the word "patriotism" in a per-
verted sense, not as meaning love of country, but meaning ap-
probation of the war made on the South. To a Republican, op-
position to that war was treason, support of it was patriotism.
The worst scoundrel that ever lived, if he eulogized that war, was
patriotic. Had St. Peter himself returned to earth and even hint-
ed that war was cruel and unnecessary, he would have been
called a traitor and confined in a dungeon cell. Of a bill to
create offices in 1864. Chase wrote in his diary:

"If this bill becomes a law, Lincoln will most certain-
ly put men in office from political considerations."

Chap. 4 Facts and Falsehoods. 13

On this, page 448, Rliodes comments thus :

"A President who selected unfit generals for the reason
that they represented phases of public opinion, would hardly
hesitate to name postmasters and collectors who could be re-
lied upon as a personal following."

This is as near as Rhodes dare come in adverse criticism of
the apotheosized man. Rhodes further says :

"In conversation, in private correspondence, in the confi-
dence of his diary. Chase dealt censure unrestrained on Lin-
coln's conduct of the war."

Morse says :

"Many distinguished men of his own party distrusted
Mr. Lincoln's character."

On an ofiicial visit to Washington, February 23, 1863, Richar "
H. Dana wrote Thomas Lathrop as follows :

"I see no hope but in the army ; the lack of respect for
the President in all parties is unconcealed. The most strik-
ing thing is the absence of personal loyalty to the Presi-
dent. It does not exist. He has no admirers. If a conven-
tion were held tomorrow he would not get the vote of a
single State. He does not act or talk or feel like the ruler of
an empire. He seems to be fonder of details than of princi-
ples, fonder of personal questions than of weightier matters
of empire. He likes rather to talk and tell stories with all
sorts of people who come to him for all sorts of purposes,
than to give his mind to the many duties of his great post.
This is the feeling of his Cabinet. He has a kind of shrewd
common sense, slip-shod, low-leveled honesty that made him a
good Western lawyer, but he is an unutterable calamity to
us where he is. Only the army can save us."

This was the way Mr. Dana and many other RepublicanF
saw Mr. Lincoln before the apotheosis ceremony. After tha:
ceremony the Honorable S. E. Crittenden expressed dee['
regret that —

"The men whose acquaintance wath Mr. Lincoln was in-
timate enough to form any just estimate of his character did
not more fully appreciate his statesmanship and other great
qualities. They did not recognize him as the greatest states-
man and writer of the times."

14 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 4

Is It not a little singular that neither Crittenden or any other
Republican writer has made any attempt to explain the phenom-
enon, that despite Mr. Lincoln's greatness and goodness not one,
so far as I can discover, of his contemporaries perceived those
qualities while he lived? The New York Indepoidcnt, a strong
Republican journal, in its issue of August 9th, 1862, thus com-
mented on Lincoln's state papers:

"Compare the state papers, messages, proclamations, or-
ders, documents, which preceded or accompanied the War of
Independence, with those of President Lincoln's papers.
These are cold, lifeless, dead. There has not been a line in
any government paper that might not have been issued by
the Czar of Russia or by Louis Napoleon of France."

The state papers of the War of Independence were inspired
by the highest, the most generous emotion of the human heart-
love of freedom. The state papers of President Lincoln were in-
spired by the meanest, the most sellish — the pubsion for conq..c^t.
Is it strange that in tone and spirit, Lincoln's state papers should
resemble those of the Czar of Russia? Both men stood on a
despot's platform.

■■(Jur state papers," continues the New York Indepoid-
cnt, "during this eventful period (the war of conquest on
the South) are void of genius and enthusiasm for the great
doctrine on which this government was founded. Faith in
human rights is dead in Washington."

Never spoke journal a more lamentable truth. P"aith in hu-
man rights was not only dead in Washington, but the Gov-
ernment in Washington was using all the machinery in its power
to trample down that faith deep in bloody mire on a hundred
battlefields. The Washington Government had gone back a
hundred years to the old monarchic doctrines of George III., and
was doing its utmost to quell and kill the patriotic spirit of '76,
which had rescued the Colonies from kingly rule- Dunning,
President of Columbia L^niversity, in one of his essays on the
Civil War (the war of conquest on the South), says, page 39:

"President Lincoln's proclamation of September 24th,
1862, was a perfect plat for a military despotism. The
very demonstrative resistance of the people to the govern-
ment only made military arrests more frequent. Lincoln
asserted the existence of military law throughout the United
States."

Chap. 4 Facts and Falsehoods. 15

The President of Columbia University miglit have gone
a Httle farther back and found that the plat Lincoln made for
a military despotism was when he called for 75,000 armed men to
invade and conquer the States of the South. The Rev. Robert
Collier, a distinguished dvine of Chicago, was on a visit tc;
Washington City.

"The Rev. Mr. Collier," says Lamon, "sharing the
prevailing sentiment in regard to the incapacity and ineffi-
ciency of Lincoln's government, chanced to pass through the
White House grounds. Casting a glance at the Executive
Mansion, he saw three pairs of feet resting on the ledge of an
open window on the second floor. Calmly surveying the
grotesque spectacle, Mr. Collier asked a man at work about
the grounds 'What that meant?' pointing to the six feet in
the window. 'You old fool!' retorted the man, ^tliat's
the Cabinet a settin' and them big feet is old Abe's.' "

Some time after, in a lecture at Boston, Mr. Collier described
the scene and commented on the imbecility of the Lincoln gov-
ernment :

"Projecting their feet out of a wandow and jabbering
away is about all they're good for in Washington," said
the great preacher.

The reader will observe the first line of this quotation :
"Mr. Collier, sharing the prevailing sentiment in regard to
Mr. Lincoln's incapacity."

This sentiment prevailed up to the hour of Lincoln's death.
As soon as the apotheosis ceremony was performed, the Rev.
Collier made haste to assume toward Lincoln an attitude of rev-
erence and admiration.

"I abused poor Lincoln like the fool the man called me,"
said Mr. Collier.

Charles Francis Adams wrote of the living Lincoln :

"When Lincoln first entered upon his functions as Presi-
dent, he filled with dismay all those brought in contact with
him."

«

The dismay did not abate as the years went by ; on the con-
trary, the opposition to Lincoln, the distrust, the disgust, in-
creased from day to day to the hour of his death. Tn 1873 ex-
Minister Adams made an address to the Legislature of New York
on the occasion of Seward's death. On page 48 Adams said:

"When Lincoln entered upon his duties as President he

i

i6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 5

displayed moral, intellectual and executive incompetency."

. So far as I can discover, not during Lincoln's life did any

noted Republican state that he displayed anything else.

Ji-ne 20th Richard H. Dana, in the New York World, wrote

thus:

"I have had several iirterviews with Lincoln, Seward,
Blair, Stanton, Wells and Chase. They all say dreadful
things of each other, all except Seward. They are all at
sixes and sevens. I cannot describe Lincoln. He was so-
bered in his talk ; told no extreme stories. You feel for him
a kind of pity, feeling that he has some qualities of great
value, yet fearing his weak points may make him wreck
something."

CHAPTER r.

I Fend ell Phillips' Estimate of Lincoln. Secretary of War Stan-
ton's Opinion. The Wade and Winter Davis Manifesto.
Stanton's First Interviezv With Lincoln.. His Insulting
Treatment of Lincoln. McClcllan's Letters to His Wife.
Lincoln Reads Artemus Ward at Cabinet Meeting. Chase's
Disgust. Lincoln's Hilarity. Why Did Lincoln Appoint
Stanton Cabinet Ministcrf Seward on United States Con-
stitution. Stanton Bullies Lincoln.

Not only in private life but in public speeches did Wendell
Phillips speak of President Lincoln in the most uncompliment-
■•;ry terms. On August i, 1862, W^endell Phillips said to his au-
' Hence:

"As long as 3'OU keep the present turtle (Lincoln) at
the head of affairs you make a pit with one hand and fill
it with the other. T know Mr. Lincoln. I have been to
Washington and taken his measure. He is a first-rate sec-
ond-rate man ; that is all of him. He is a mere convenience
and is waiting, like any other broomstick, to be used."

In a speech made at Music Hall, New Haven, 1863, Phil-
ips said:

"Lincoln was badgered into emancipation. After he is-
sued it he said it was the greatest folly of his life. It was
like the Pope's bull against the comet."

In a speech in Tremont Temple, Boston, Wendell Phillips
said to his larjre audience:

Chap. 5 Facts and Falsehoods. 17

"With a man for President we should have put down
the rehellion in ninety days." — Logic of History, page 12.
Wendell Phillips, at a Republican meeting in Boston, called
to express disgust at the conduct of the Government, said:

"President Lincoln, with senile, lick-spittle haste, runs
before he is bidden, to revoke the Hunter proclamation.
The President and the Cabinet are treasonable. The Presi-
dent and the Secretary of War should be impeached."

In .1864, in a speech at Cooper Institute, Phillips de-
nounced Lincoln's despotic acts in the strongest possible
terms. Phillips said:

'T judge Mr. Lincoln by his acts, his violation of the
law, his overthrow of liberty !n the Northern States. I
judge Mr. Lincoln by his words and deeds, and so judging,
I am unwilling to trust Abraham Lincoln with the future
of this country. Mr. Lincoln is a politician ; politicians are
like the bones of a horse's fore shoulder ; not a straight one
in it. I am a citizen watchful of constitutional lib-
erty. Are you willing to sacrifice the constitutional rights
of sevent}^ years? A man in the field (the army) said:
'The re-election of Lincoln will be a national disaster.' An-
other said : 'The re-election of Lincoln will be national
destruction.' I want free speech. Let Abraham Lincoln
know that we are stronger than Abraham Lincoln ; that he
is the servant to obey us."

August 5, 1864, Henry AVinter Davis and Senator Wade
of Ohio issued a very bitter manifesto against President Lin-
coln, charging him with —

"A more studied outrage on the legislative authority
of the people than was ever before perpetrated."

When Lincoln was asked if he had seen this speech of Phil-
lips and the Winter Davis-Wade manifesto against him, he re-
plied :

"I have seen enough to satisfy me that I am a failure,
not only in the opinion of the people in the rebellion, but
of many distinguished politicians of my own party." — La-
mon's Recollections, page 187.

This occurred only a short time before Lincoln's death. Of
all Mr. Lincoln's "venomous detractors/' Stanton was the most
venomous. It seems that Stanton first met Lincoln in Cincin-
nati, in 1858. Stanton and Lincoln both gave an account of

i8 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 5

that meeting-. Stanton told the story to General Don Piatt
who relates it as follows:

"A few minutes," said Stanton, "before I went to the
trial of the McCormack case I met INIr. Lincoln for the
first time. He had been retained to assist in the case and
called on me. I saw a long, lank creature. He wore a
dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the per-
spiration from his armpits had splotched two wide stains,
which met at the center and resembled a dirty map of the
continent. "I said." snorted Stanton, "that if that o^iraffe ap-
peared in the case I would throw up my brief and leave."
Lamon gives the story as Lincoln gave it to him.

"On first meeting Stanton," Lincoln said, "he treated
me so rudely I went out of the room ; saAv ]\IcCormack
and told him I should have to withdraw as his counsel in
the case, stating the reasons therefor. McCormack went
in and remonstrated with Stanton. "I will not." said Stan-
ton, scornfully, "associate with such a damned gawky, long-
armed ape. If I can't have" a man who is a gentleman in
appearance I will abandon the case."

Lincoln was in the ■ next room and heard every word.
When McCormack returned, Lincoln refunded his fee and left
for Urbana, Illinois, where he related the occurrence to his broth-
er lawyers. Stanton's disgust toward Lincoln never abated during
Lincoln's life. He never referred to him except as "that gorilli
at the White House," or "that ourang outang at the other end of
the avenue." Before Stanton was appointed to the Cabinet, he
was in the habit of visiting General McClellan. In McClellan's
Life a number of letters to his wife are published, in which Mc-
Clellan speaks of Stanton's visits. In one he wrote thus:

"The most disagreeable thing about Stanton is the ex-
treme virulence of his abuse of President Lincoln, his whole
administration, as well of all the Republican party. I am
often shocked."

In another, McClellan writes :

"Stanton never speaks of the President in any way
other than as "that original gorilla." He often says: "DuChail-
lie was a fool to wander all the way to Africa in search of
what he could have found in Springfield, Illinois."

In another, McClellan writes :

"J^othing can be more bitter than Stanton's words and

Chap. 5 Facts a.xd Falsehoods. 19

manner when speaking of the President and his administra-
tion. He gives them no credit for honesty of purpose or pa-
triotism, and very seldom for abiHty. He often advises the
propriety of my seizing the government and taking power in
my own hands."

In another letter McClellan writes :

"Stanton often speaks of the painful imbecility of the
President."

In McClure's Life of Lincoln, page 150, is this:

"Before Stanton was appointed Secretary of War he
was an open and malignant opponent of the Lincoln admin-
istration. He often spoke to public men, military and civil,
with withering sneers of Lincoln. I have heard him speak
thus of Lincoln, and several times to him in the same way."

"After Stanton left Buchanan's Cabinet he maintained
close confidential relations with Buchanan, kept up a con*,
spondence, and in some of his letters he expressed the utmost
contempt for Lincoln. In some of his letters, published in
Curtis" Life of Buchanan, Stanton speaks freely of the "pain-
ful imbecility of Lincoln, of the venality and corruption that
ran riot in the Government.' It is an open secret that Stan-
ton advised the overthrow of the Lincoln Government, to
be replaced by McClellan as a military dictator. These let-
ters published by Curtis, bad as they are, are not the worst
letters written by Stanton to Buchanan. Some of them are
so violent in expression against Lincoln they have been char-
itably withheld from the public."

— (See Minor's Real Lincoln.)

In "On Circuit With Lincoln," page 428, Whitney tells of
these suppressed letters. Hapgood's Lincoln, page 164, refers
to Stanton's brutal absence of decent personal feeling towards
Lincoln, and tells of his insulting behavior when they met five
years earlier, of which meeting Stanton said :

"I met Lincoln at the bar and found him a low, cunning
clown."

McClure say-s Stanton had little respect for Lincoln's fitness
for the Presidency, yet to ^Ir. Buchanan during his Presidency
Stanton showed an excess of deference. Air. Buchanan, in a let-
ter to his niece. Miss Harriet Lane, complained that Stanton,
when in his Cabinet, "was alwavs on my side and flattered me

20 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 5

ad nausexim." (See Minor's Real Lincoln.) Yet in the very
teeth of all this evidence showing how the foremost Republicans
indulged in "grotesque descriptions" of Lincoln's person, some
of his historians have the gall to charge such descriptions to
Southern people.

"Grotesque descriptions," says the truthful ( ?) Morse,
"of Mr. Lincoln had long been rife among the Southerners, as
if he had been a Caliban in education, manners and aspect,
whose conversation would be redolent of the barn yard and
pigsty."

If such descriptions were rife in the South they were bor-
rowed from Republican sources. Was it a Southern man who
always referred to President Lincoln as "the gorilla in the White
House?" or "that baboon at the other end of the avenue?" Was
it any man in the South who called Lincoln "that long-armed
ape?" and refused to act with him in a law case? Was it any
man in the South who talked of "Lincoln's painful imbecility?"
Was it the governor of a Southern or New England State who
said that "Lincoln retailed stories so obscene he left his pres-
ence in disgust?" Was it a Northern or Southern minister who
left the East Room, after interviewing Lincoln, "with a sicken-
ing sensation of despair that such a man was in such a position?"
Is it not time Republican writers should pay a little regard to
truth? They know well that the men of the South had little or
no opportunity to know Lincoln personally. Was Mr. JMorse
really ignorant on this subject? Had he never heard of the "ven-
omous detractions" lavished on the living Lincoln by men of his
own party? Or did he know, but, to carry out the apotheosis
scheme, think it his duty to charge those detractions to South-
ern people? The most revolting story told of Lincoln (with
the exception of the comic song he called for on the field of bat-
tle) is related by General Piatt, who had it direct from Chase.
It is known that the Emancipation proclamation was finally put
forth as a war measure. The days were very dark for the Union
army. The Southern chiefs were still victorious on every field.
Rivers of human blood continued to flow on battlefields. The
hospitals in Washington were crowded with mutilated, wounded,
dying Union soldiers. At this juncture Lincoln hoped the issue
of an Emancipation proclamation would put new life into the
Union army, would turn the tide of disaster antl bring victory to
his troops. The proclamation was written. The Cabinet was
called to hear and consider it. The members met in solemn con-

Chap. 5 Facts and Falsehoods. 21

clave. President Lincoln entered ; in his hand not the procla-
mation, 1)iit a copy of Artenuis Ward's latest "funny book." Mr.
Lincoln opened at the first page and read on and on, almost to
the very last, amid roars of laughter from every Cabinet minister
except Chase, who sat silent, w^ith solemn, reproving visage.
Now and then Mr. Lincoln would look up from Ward's "funny
page" at Chase's solemn face and break into louder guffaws of
hilarity, followed by the boisterous guffaws of all his Cabinet ad-
visers except Chase. General Piatt says that "Chase's inveterate
dislike of Lincoln's jokes and stories was a source of great
amusement to Mr. Lincoln and the other members of his Cabi-
net, and that Lincoln seldom lost an opportunity to entertain
himself and them in that direction."

"Both Stanton and Chase, " says General Piatt, "de-
scribed these occasions to me : Chase with an aggrieved tone,
Stanton with hilarious laughter. The reader may judge of
their sort when I state that scarcely one of Lincoln's stories
would bear printing."

On a previous page we have shown Stanton's angry disgust
on seeing Lincoln's dirty linen duster. Soap and water can wash
dust away ; no amount of soap and water will wash away mental
and moral foulness. Stanton turned up his nose at the dust, but
laughed hilariously at Lincoln's moral foulness. Lincoln's ap-
pointment of his bitterest enemy, and the bitter enemy of the Re-
publican party, to the high office of Cabinet Minister not only
astonished, it angered Republicans. It was well known that Stan-
ton all his life had called himself a Democrat, had served the
Democratic party as Cabinet Minister during President Buchan-
an's administration, and had always professed to be a pro-slavery
man. While in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, Stanton had accepted
the opinion expressed by President Buchanan and his constitution-
al advisers, that neither the President or Congress had any con-
stitutional right to coerce seceding States. Knowing such were
the opinions Stanton professed, why did Lincoln put him in his
Cabinet? This was the question of the hour. Hapgood says of
Stanton's appointment:

"No man not a Southern rebel had less right to expect
office from Lincoln than Stanton. Most men who had ex-
pressed the opinions held by Stanton would have had scruples
of delicacy about coming in close relationship of confidential
adviser with the object of their contempt. No scruple de-
layed Stanton : his acceptance was prompt."

22 Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap. 5

Stanton accepted office because he wanted place and power ;
he had no principles to stand in his way. Always eag-er to eulo-
gize the man his party had deified. Tlaiigood calls Lincoln's ap-
pointment of Stanton "brilliant magnanimitv."' This, however,
is only apotheosis twaddle to which Republican writers resort to
support the theor\ of Lincoln's divinity. Those who knew Mr.
Lincoln's mental and moral peculiarities explain the real reasons
which made him show more favors to enemies than to those whi>
had faithfully worked for him. The following is Herndon's ex-
planation :

"Lincoln always gave more to his enemies than to his
friends. In the close calculations of attaching the factions
to himself he counted on the affection of his friends to serve
him and tried to appease his enemies by gifts. There was
always truth in the charge of his friends that he failed to re-
ciprocate their devotion with favors ; adhesion to his interests
was what Lincoln wanted. If he got adhesion gratuitiouslv
he never wasted his gifts paying for it."

Herndon bluntly says in his suppressed Life of Lincoln :

"Lincoln had no gratitude. He accepted the services of
his friends as his due, and never thought of making any re-
turns."

Morse, Vbl. i. page -^^ly, says:

"Stanton carried his revilings of the President to the
point of coarse, personal insults."

On another page Morse speaks of Stanton's "habitual in-
sults." Lincoln knew of these insults, yet when it was determin-
ed that Cameron should vacate the Caljinct, Lincoln said to Chase:
"I know that Stanton dislikes me, but T wish to see him.
Ask him to call and see me."

Stanton called, and after some talk, Lincoln said:

"The office of Secretary of War will soon be vacant.
Will you accept it?"

.Stanton was dumfounded. This "long-armed ape," this
"gorilla," this "baboon," whom he had so bitterly scorned and
reviled, offered him one of the highest offices in his gift. On re-
covering his breath, Stanton did not, like the surprised maiden,
blush and say: "This is so sudden," but he said something very
like it.

"You take me by surprise. Will you give me a day to
consider it?"

CiiAT. 6 Facts and Falsehoods. 2t,

Hap^ood says he promptly accepted. General Piatt, who
well knew Stanton, was so astonished, he said to him :

"How can you reconcile your contempt for Lincoln, and
vour widely different views on politics, with service under
iiim ?"

Stanton evaded reply, but Piatt, who worshipped Stanton's
success, as it was his nature to worship successful uicn and suc-
cessful measures, and who believed that God had called Stanton,
as well as Lincoln, to the front, undertakes to explain why an old
Democrat, who, under Buchanan, liad believed the South had a
rig-ht to independence, was now willing to serve a President and
l^arty which, as was declared a thousand times during the war,
were determined to "crush, conquer, kill or annihilate" the whole
people of the South on the ground that they had no right to leave
llie L^nion.

"Stanton," said Piatt, "saw the absurdity of holding the
Union by the rotten rail of a Virginia abstraction."

The "Virginia abstraction" meant the United States Con-
stitution, concerning which Seward had given Piatt a lesson.

"We are bound to the tail of a paper kite," said Seward
to Piatt, "called the Constitution. A written Constitution
is dangerous to us of the North. The South is using it as
a shield."

The Constitution 7^'as dangerous to "us ( the Republican par-
ty ) of the North." It stood in the way of that party's imperial
policy of conquest. The Republican party kicked the Constitu-
tion into the Capitol cellar to clear the way for conquest.

CHAPTER V I.

. I JVestern Rep.ubHcan Paper Propounds the True Republican
Doctrine.

The Lemars (la.) Sentinel. 1S79, fearlessh- pro]:)()unded Re-
publican doctrines.

"Xo reasonable man,"' said the Sentinel, "will say that
President FUichanan was wrong when he said that the North
had no constitutional right to coerce seceding States, but what
of that? I'p ium])ed AI)raham Lincoln, the rail-splitter,
and kicked the Constitution into the Capitol cellar, and call-
ed for 75,000 armed men to march down and c(>n(|uer the
South, and when the 75,000 proved not enough, the rail-

24 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 6

splitter called for more, and more, until he had over 2,000,-
000 armed men, and he sent 'em down to burn and pillage, to
kill, conquer or annihilate traitors to our g-lorious Union, the
Constitution all the while in the Capitol cellar."

Although every intelligent man in the Republican party
knows that their party despised the Constitution, still as the great
body of the North's people had not lost love and reverence for it,
few Republicans openly denounced it. Wendell Philips, Lloyd
Garrison, and other bold men, time and again, had publicly de-
novmccd the Constitution and shouted aloud their desire to tear
it in pieces. Beecher, from his pulpit, contemptuously called the
Constitution a "sheep skin" government deserving no respect.

If the Republicans were puzzled to understand why Lincoln
f^assed by staunch men of his own party to favor Stanton, thev
were at no loss to understand why Stanton accepted office from the
man he despised. Piatt says :

"Stanton and Seward rioted in the use of power."

The souls of both these men were filled with the evil passion
for power. Before Stanton's accession to office, why did he so
assiduously pay court to General McClellan ? Why use his utmost
endeavor to inspire McClellan with scorn and contempt for Lincoln
and his government? Why insidiously flatter McClellan? Why
urge him to sieze in his own hands the reins of Government and
make himself supreme dictator? In this dictator scheme did
Stanton see a chance for himself to achieve power? Certain it
is, Stanton's frequent visits to McClellan. his confidential outpour-
ings, his flatteries, his desire to see McClellan make himself dic-
tator, all stopped short the very day Stanton accepted place and
power from Lincoln. From that day Stanton turned the cold
shoulder on McClellan and reveled in the power his office gave
him.

In Lamon's Recollections of Lincoln, page' 198, is this:

"It was generally believed that President Lincoln ab-
jectly endured the almost insulting domination of Secretary
of War Stanton."

On page 233 Lamon says :

"There was a prevailing opinion that Stanton at times ar-
bitrarily refused to obey or carry out President Lincoln's
orders."

Lamon so loved Lincoln, anything detracting from his glory
annoyed him. He denies that Lincoln was governed by Stan-

Chap. 6 Facts and Falsehoods. 25

ton, yet, being of a garrulous turn of mind, and honestly believing
that the whole world is interested in any and every incident of
Lincoln's life, Lamon often relates incidents which directly con-
tradict his own previous assertions. The following story, to the
ordinary understanding, goes to show that Stanton played the
master over Lincoln :

"On the night of March 3rd, 1865," relates Lamon,
"Mr. Lincoln, with several members of his Cabinet, was at
the Capitol waiting the final passage of bills by Congress in
order that the President should sign them. Everybody seem-
ed happy at the prospect of peace. A dispatch from General
Grant was handed to Stanton, who read it, and handed
it to the President. The telegram advised Stanton that
Grant had just received a letter from General Lee, request-
ing an interview, with a view to re-establishing peace between
the sections. The dispatch was read by others of the par-
ty. Mr. Lincoln's spirits rose to a height rarely witnessed.
He was unable to restrain himself from giving expression to
the natural impulse of his heart. He was in favor of grant-
ing lenient and generous terms to the defeated foe. Mr.
Stanton fell into a towering rage ; he also could not restrain
himself. Turning on the President, his eyes flashing fire, he
cried angrily : 'Mr. President, you are losing sight of the
consideration at this juncture, how and by whom is this war
to be closed? Tomorrow is inauguration day. Read again
that dispatch. Don't you appreciate its significance?
if \ou arc not to be President of an oliedient and loyal peo-
ple, vou ought not to take the oath of ofiice. You are not
a proper person to be empowered to so high a trust. You
should not consent to act in the capacity of a mere figure-
head. If terms of peace do not emanate from you, and do
not imply that you are supreme head of the Nation, you are
not needed. By doing thus you will scandalize every friend
you possess.' "

How did the President of the Ignited States receive this
severe castigation ? This insolent bullying from his Cabinet
member? Did he freeze him with cold displeasure? Did he
resent with grave dignity? Did he break out in hot anger?
Nothing of the sort. President Lincoln accepted his inferior of-
ficer's scolding with the submissiveness which comes from an
inferior to a superior.

Lamon concludes the stor\- thus:

26 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 6

"Mr. Lincoln sat silent at the table for a few min-
utes, then he said: 'vStanton, you are right. The dispatch
did not strike me at first as I now consider it' Then
taking pen and paper Mr. Lincoln wrote a dispatch, handed
it to Stanton, requesting him to sign, date and send it to
Grant."

In this scene which man played the part of a snubbed and
scolded school-boy? Which the part of an irascible school-mas-
ter who had caught the boy misbehaving himself? Yet poor
Lamon's judgment was so befogged, his eyes so bedazzled by
the glare of Lincoln's wonderful success, he could neither think
nor see straight. On one page he tells his readers that his
friend, his "benefactor, Lincoln," was always the masterful and
guiding spirit, that even the bad-tempered Secretary of ^^'ar
was submissive and reverential to Lincoln. A page or two after
he gives us a picture of his great man in the character of a
whipped school-boy. It has been said a hundred times that the
mitimely taking off of Mr. Lincoln was a woeful misfortune to"
the Southern people ; that had Lincoln lived through a second
term the South would have been spared the horrors of the re-
construction period. This has been told so often, many North
and South have come to believe it. It is quite possible that Mr.
Lincoln would have l)een satisfied with the return of peace and
the entire surrender of the Southern army. There is nothing
in Lincoln's historv to show tliat his heart had become gangremd
wnth hate of Southern people, as was the case with some
others. He had longed for victory, for peace, for a second
term — these three things had come to him and filled his heart
with joy. But, would these have satisfied the men wlio would
have been around Lincoln? Andrew Johnson attempted to carry
out the policy it was supposed that Lincoln had decided on,
but the foremost men of the Republican party opposed that pol-
icy. Johnson's persistence came near losing him his office and
his life as well. The great body of Republican leaders came
to hate Johnson because of his more merciful policy full as
intensely as they hated Jefferson Davis. The question is, was
it Lincoln's nature to have successfully resisted the pressure the
leading men of his own party would have brought to bear on
him? Could they not easily have forced Lincoln to yield and
adopt their cruel policy of treating the South ? \\' hen we con-
sider how the leaders felt toward Mr. Lincoln, luiw little respect
and esteem they entertained for him. liow imbecile and itiferior
they believed him to be, it does not seem at all proliaI)Ie that tkey

Chap. 6 Facts and Fai.sehoods. 27

would have yielded their dpinions to his. Thoug-h not want-
only cruel, thouo-h not of a nature to seek pleasure by causing
human sufferin.q-. Lincoln had little or no pity for i)ain. Unlike
r.. \\ Butler and Sherman, Lincoln did not find gleeful delight
in the power to humiliate, torment, and torture the men and wo-
men of the South whti were utterly at his mercy. It does not
appear that by nature Cirant was despotic or unusually cruel, yet
to serve his ambition he l)ecame the tool of others who were
cruel. The reader must have noticed these lines in Lamon's
story of Lincoln and Stanton, just related:

"Lincoln's spirit rose to a height rarely wituessed ; he
was unable to restrain himself from giving expression to
the natural impulse of his heart. He was in favor of
granting lenient and generous terms to the defeated foe.
Air. Sfanfoii fell info a tozvcring rage: he could not re-
strain himself; tnrning on the President, his eyes flashing fire,
he said, etc."

What so angered Stanton ? Stanton was not only a sav-
age, ill-tempered man, but he delighted in cruelty. Did he fall
into that towering rage because Lincoln was in favor of granting
lenient and generous terms to the South ? Was it of this leniency
that Lincoln so swiftly repented and submitted himself to the dom-
inance of the savage and cruel "Stanton? If this was not
the cause of Stanton's sudden anger, it might possibly have
sprung from pure irritability. The reader may remember Stan-
ton's unnecessary fit of ill temper on seeing Lmcoln arrayed in
a dusty linen coat. Lamon says :

"Lincoln was unable to restrain himself ; his spirits rose
to a height rarely witnessed."

The actions of a very uncouth man, even under happy ex-
citement, may be very rasping to the irritable nerves of a cross,
savage tempered man. Was it something of this sort that threw
Stanton into that towering rage? Illustrative of the oddities of
Lincoln's character, and the curious effect joy sometimes pro-
( hired upon him, we offer a little story taken from Butler's T.ook.
After Fort Hatteras was captured by the L'nion forces Gen-
eral Butler was so eager to be the first to carry the good news to
1 .incoln, he set off for Washington City and arrived there late at
uight. Accompanied by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Mr.
Fox, they drove rapidly to the White House, roused the night
watchman, sent a servant to rouse Mr. Lincoln, and the two
men. Fox and lUitler, went into the Cabinet room to await his

28 . Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 6

coming. Mr. Lincoln did not take time to dress. He entered in
his night gown, barefooted. Bntler conchides the story as fol-
lows:

"Everybody knows how tall Lincoln was (six feet four
inches) ; he seemed much taller in that night shirt. (Fox was
five feet nothing.) Fox told the joyous story, whereupon he
and Lincoln fell into each other's arms ; that is, Fox threw
his arms around Lincoln about as high as the hips. Lin-
coln reached down over Fox until his long arms were nearly
to the floor; thus holding each other they began a waltz,
flying round and round ; the night shirt-tail was so agi-
tated it fluttered in the breeze like a flag of joy. I was so
overcome by the spectacle I lay back on the sofa and roared
with laughter."

The reader may remember Herndon's description of the
night gowns Lincoln usually wore :

"Long, narrow, yellow flannel things which struck him
just above his knobby knees. A young lawyer," says Hern-
don, "on seeing Mr. Lincoln for the first time in one of those
yellow flannel gowns was almost paralyzed."

Morse wants it believed that Lincoln appointed Stanton to
ofiice because of his peculiar fitness. There is not the least ev-
idence that Stanton had ever manifested such fitness, unless, in-
deed, Lincoln fancied Stanton's scorn and contempt for him,
his Cabinet, and party were signs of fitness.

Morse (page 328) thus describes Stanton's ability for the
ofiice Lincoln gave him :

"Stanton's abilities command some respect, though his
character never excited either liking or respect. In his
dealings with men he was capable of much duplicity ; he was
arbitrary, harsh and bad-tempered. He often committed
acts of injustice and cruelty for which he rarely made
amends, and still more rarely seemed disturbed by any re-
morse or regret. These traits bore hard on individuals, but
ready and unscrupulous cruelty was supposed to be useful
in war. Lincoln is the only ruler in history who could for
years have co-operated with such a man as Stanton."

Chap. 6 Facts and Falsehoods. 29

What an admission is this! "Ready and unscrupulous cru-
elty supposed to he useful" Was it Pope's, Sherman's, Sheri-
dan's, Brownlow's, Butler's "ready, unscrupulous cruelty" which
recommended them to Lincoln's favor? Was it McClellan's less
cruel nature which lost him the favor of Lincoln, of Seward,
and Stanton? McClellan's orders show that he wanted to ob-
serve the customs of war as established by civilized peoples.
The above named army officers, except McClellan, reveled in cru-
elty.

Morse (page 376) continues:

"From Stanton's snug personal safety (in his office,
supposed to be very dear to him) he delivered gross insults
to the highest generals in the Union army."

In Gen. Don Piatt's "Men Who Saved the Union," he says :

"Without an exception Stanton was more subject to
personal likes and dislikes than any man ever called to
public station. Both Stanton and Seward were drunk with
lust of power. They fairly rjoted in its enjoyment. Stanton
used the fearful power of the Government to crush those
he hated, and used the same to elevate those he loved.
His official business became a personal affair."

Rosecrans unintentionally offended the ego of this despot
in the Cabinet and Stanton's spite followed him through the
whole war. Piatt says Stanton gave Rosecrans first neglect and
then cruel punishment and abuse.

"Stanton," says Piatt, "grew furious almost to insan-
ity over the failure of his generals. Stanton was impa-
tient, tyrannical and often unjust. Stanton left few friends
in the administration ; his unfortunate manner offended the *
officers of the army and irritated the politicians. General
Grant hated him and tried to put Stanton on record as an
imbecile,"

Notwithstanding Stanton's dislike and scorn of Lincoln up
to the hour of his death, Republicans relate that Stanton
stood by the dying Lincoln, and after the last breath left his body
Stanton reverentially turned his eyes up to heaven as he solemn-
ly said: "He now belongs to the ages."

30 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap.

Chapter J'll.

Grant and JVashburn Defy Lincoln's Authority. U^ashburn Bul-
lies Lincoln. A United States Senator Bullies Mr. Lin-
coln. Senator JJ'ade Storms at Him. Hale in the Senate
Assails Him. Rcz\ Mr. Fuller's Unfavorable Opinions of
Lincoln. Li), coin's Trickery.

"Lincoln," says Lamon, "had given to Mr. Joseph
Mattox and to General Singleton permits and passes
through the line to bring cotton and other Southern pro-
ducts from Virginia. Washburn heard of it, called im-
mediately on the President and threatened to have Genera!
Grant countermand the permits if Lincoln would not re-
voke them. ]\Ir. Lincoln replied: 'I do not believe Grant
would take upon himself the responsibility of such an act.'
'I will show you, sir, ' cried Washburn, excitedly. 'I will
show you whether Grant will do it or not.' \\^ashburn ab-
ruptly withdrew and by the next boat left Washington
for Grant's headquarters, and soon returned, and so likewise
did ^lattox and Singleton. Grant had countermanded the
permits. This was a source of exultation to Mr. Wash-
burn and his friends and of corresponding surprise and
mortification to the President. 'I wonder,' said he 'when
General Grant changed his mind on this subject? Grant
was the first man to give permits for the passage, and to his
own father.' "

Sometime after Mr. Lincoln referred to the matter and
said :

"It made me feel my insignificance keenly for the mo-
ment, but if my friends Washburn. Henry Wilson and others
derived anv pleasure from a victorv over me. let them enjoy
it."

Does this story indicate that the men in his own partv re-
spected or feared Mr. Lincoln ? How would \\'ashington or
Jackson or an}- other President have borne disrespectful treat-
ment from inferior officers? ( )n i:)agc 27,c) of Lamon's Recol-
lections he tells another anecdote showing how little Lincoln's
contemporaries respected and esteemed him :

"After the war ended." relates Lamon. "a I'nited States-
Senator called on President Lincoln to give his idea as to
how the conquered South should be treated. As Mr. Lin-

Chai\ 7 Facts and Fai-skhoods. 31

coin (lid not readily accept the sii.^-o-estions. the Senator burst
out an^rilw 'Mr. President, it does appear to some of your
friends. ni\self included, as if you had taken leave of your
senses.' The Senator strode ott in a rag-e ; meeting on the
avenue a Congressman, his wrath exploded in words:
'Lincoln is a damned idiot!' he blurted out. 'He has no
spirit. He's as weak as an old woman. He never was
fitted for the position he holds.' "

"He is not fitted for the office he holds," had been the cry
of nearly every Republican of distinction from the first day Lin-
coln was seen in Washington, and that cry was kept up to
the last day of his life. The apotheosis ceremony served no-
tice on the whole Republican party tliat that cry must be forever
silenced, that from that hour Lincoln must be viewed as a de-
ified man, as one having entered the "sublime realm of the
gods."

Lamon has another story showing how little Lincoln's con-
temporaries esteemed or respected him :

"A short time," relates Mr. Lamon. "before the fall of
Vicksburg, Mr. Lincoln said to me, 'I feel I have made Sen-
ator Wade my enemy for life.' 'How?" T asked.
'Wade,' he replied, 'was here urging me to dismiss Grant.
I said, 'Senator, that reminds me of a story.' 'Yes! Yes!'
he petulantly interrupted, 'with you, sir, it is all story, story.
storv! You are the father of every military blunder since
the war begun ! You are on your way to hell, sir ! and
with this Government. You are not half a mile off this
minute!' Wade was very angry; grabbing up his hat and
, cane he went off."

"Certain it is." comments Lamon, "had not Vicks-
burg been speedily captured, Lincoln would have been de-
posed."

Lamon speaks of the "aggressive spirit of Congress toward
President Lincoln," and of the "small respect and less love Con-
gressmen and Senators bore to the living Lincoln."

Senator Hale, one of the foremost Republican leaders,
from the Senate floor assailed Lincoln.

"Senators," said Hale, "we must not strike too high or
too low, but between wind and weather. The Marshal is
the man to hit."

Marshal Lamon being Lincoln's closest personal friend,
Hale proposed to strike the iVesident over Lamon's shoulders.

32

Facts and Falsehoods. Chap.

Lincoln himself told LanvDn that Hale was hitting at h.iio.

"This opijosition to Lincoln," says Lamon, "became
more and more offensive. The leaders resorted to every
means in their power to thwart him. This opposition
lasted to the end of Mr. Lincoln's life."

These men habitually referred to the Chief Magistrate of
the Republic as "that hideous baboon at the other end of the
avenue."

McClure's Life of Lincoln shows the hostile attitude toward
Lincoln of the leading members of the Cabinet, and adds :

"Outside of the Cabinet, the leaders were quite as dis-
trustful of President Lincoln's ability to fill the great office
he held. Senators Trumbull, Wade, Chandler, Winter
Davis, and the men of the new political power did not
conceal their distrust of Lincoln. Lincoln had little support
from them at any time during his administration."

The reader should bear in mind the fact that it is the unan-
imous testimony of Republican writers that two-thirds
of the people of the Northern States, from the very begin-
ning of his administration, opposed Lincoln's war on the South,
and continued openly to oppose until the strong machinery of
the Lincoln Government suppressed free speech and strangled
the once free press. In the face of this fact the reader will no-
tice that McClure, as other RepubUcan writers of today, glibly
and presumptuously call the small minority of Republicans who
supported Lincoln's and Seward's war measures "the Nation."
McClure, Morse and other writers tell their readers that two-
thirds of the people opposed Lincoln, yet in the next breath tell
them, "The men (Republican war men) to whom the Nation
turned," etc. This is on its face false. The word Nation
implies the great body of the people. The two-thirds of the
people have more right to be called "the Nation" than the one-
third. As two-thirds of the people made the Nation, and these
two-thirds strongly opposed the war measures which Trumbull,
Wade, Chandler and others who -• •> .vaging the cruel and
bloody war which they, the two-thiiJ:,, they the Nation, bitterly
opposed, it follows that they, the two-thn-ds, "the Nation," could
not and did not turn to those war Republicans for any purpose
whatever except to condemn and deplore their evil work of
blood. The custom of ignoring the great body of the people as
if they had no existence is common in kingly countries, but

Chap. 7 Facts and Falsehoods. 33

was not ill vogue in this Republic until shortly after Seward
and Lincoln changed a free Republic into an imperial govern-
ment. Observing Americans in England may have noticed this
custom as seen in the London papers. When Parliament ad-
journs and royalty and the high fashionable few leave the" city,
as they always do when the society season is over, the London
newspapers calmly announce that "London is empty." And one
high society man will say to another, "There isn't a soul in the
city." One may often see this expression in English novels
coming from the mouth of some high society man or woman.
Some Republican papers of America are so imbued with the im-
perial spirit they also use the insulting phrase. The Globe-
Democrat, a Republican paper of St. Louis, in big head lines
over an article concerning the recent crowning of the English
King, made the following announcement:

"EXODUS FROM LONDON."

"The City Practically Deserted Since the Coronation."

"Practically deserted," when four or five million souls
were still in the city. These unconscious insults to the mil-
lion working people in London come from the worship of royal-
ty and the nobility. Li America it comes from the worship of
wealth and men in high office. In both cases the basic cause
is the prevalence of monarchic principles.

The Rev. R. Fuller, a Baptist minister from Baltimore,
who was spokesman for the young Christians, wrote Chase
from Baltimore April 23, 1861, of his interview with Presi-
dent Lincoln, as follows:

"From Mr. Lincoln nothing is to be expected except
as you can influence him. Five associations, representing
thousands of our best young men, sent a delegation of thirty to
Washington yesterday and asked me to go along as chairman.
We were cordially received. I marked the President closely;
he is constitutionally gay and jovial, but he is wholly inacces-
sible to Christian appeals. His egotism will forever prevent his
comprehending what patriotism means."

(See Rhode's History of U. S. and Chase's M. S. Papers.)

Rhodes states that Lincoln clearly said to the young Chris-
tian delegates :

"I have no desire to invade the South, but I must have
troops to defend this capital."

This was pure trickery on Lincoln's part. In the second

34 Facts and Falskhoods. Chav. 8

part of tliis work will l)e found indisputable evidence to prove
the fact that before Lincohi entered on the Presidency, certainly
during the first month of his incuml)ency, he and Seward
determined on war. and determined to make the Xorthern peo])k'
believe the South began it. Lincoln well knew his capital was
in no particle of danger until after he himself began the war.

Chapter J' If I.

Henidon's Pen Portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A Springfield
Laz\.'ye/s Pen Portrait. General Piatt on "Pious Lies." The
"Real Lincoln Disappeared from Human Knowledge.'"'
Herndon's Life of L'ncoln. Why Suppresed. Extracts
From the Suppressed Work.

It is known that the outside form of man or beast, the shape
of his head, his body, the expression of his eyes, the tone of his
voice, are indices of his mental and moral character. Few may
be able to interpret these indices, nevertheless they are signs
stamped by the Creator himself. For this reason I shall lay be-
fore my readers two pen portraits of Mr. Lincoln, drawn by two
men who knew him in Springfield — both drawn soon after Mr.
Lincoln's death, and before his burial, as he lay in his costly cata-
falque. Both of these portraits are taken from Herndon's sup-
pressed Life of Lincoln ; both are reproduced in Mr. Weik's "True
Story of a Great Life," purporting to have been written by Hern-
don.

Herndon's pen portrait of ^Ir. Lincoln:

"Abraham Lincoln was six feet four inches high. He
was thin in the chest, wiry, sinewy, raw-boned, and narrow
across the shoulders. His legs were unnaturally long and
out of proportion to his body. His forehead was high and
narrow, his jaws long, his nose long, large and blunt at the
tip, ruddy and turned awry toward the right. A few hairs
here and there sprouted, on his face. His chin projected far
and sharp and turned up to meet a thick, material, down-
hanging lip. His cheeks w^ere flabby, the loose skin in folds
or wrinkles. His hair was brown, stiff and unkempt. His
complexion very dark, his skin yellow, shriveled and leatherv.
His whole aspect was cadaverous and woe-struck. His ears
were large and stood out at almost right angles from his
head. He had no dignity of manner, and was extremely un-

Chap. 8 Facts and Falsehoods. 35

gainly and awkward. TTis voice was shrill and pipincf. He
usually wore an old hat and a faded hrown coat which hung
baggy on his long, gaunt frame. His breeches were usu-
ally six inches too short, showing his big, bony shins; his
sleeves were six inches too short, showing his big, bonv
hands. His body was shrunk and shriveled. He usually
slept in a long, coarse, yellow flannel night-gown, which
struck him just below his knobby knees, showing his long,
lanky legs and big feet. (A young lawyer first seeing him
in this costume was almost paralyzed.) The first impres-
sion of a stranger on seeing Mr. Lincoln walk, was that he
was a tricky man : his walk implied shrewdness."

If tlie reader wishes to study the strange character of Mr.
Lincoln, he must bear in mind the above description of his per-
son. When we present the salient features of Mr. Lincoln's men-
tal and moral nature, the analytical reader can compare them with
his physical, especially should the reader hold in memory these
words : "The first impression of a stranger on seeing Mr. Lincoln
walk zvas that lie z<.'as a tricky man."

If there ever was a tricky man born on earth, it was Abraham
Lincoln. Side by side of his own pen portrait of Lincoln. Hern-
don places another, drawn by a Springfield lawyer, who did not
wish his name given :

"I am particularly requested." said this lawyer, "to write
out my opinion of the man, Abraham Lincoln, late President
of the I'nited States. T consent to do this without any other
motive than to comply with the request of a brother lawyer.
While Mr. Lincoln and I were good friends, I believe myself
wholly indififcrent to the future of his memory. I\Iy opinion
of him was formed by a personal and professional acquaint-
ance of over ten years, and has not been altered or influenced
by any of his promotions in public life. The adulation by
base multitudes of a living and the pageantry surrounding a
(lead President do not shake my well-settled convictions of the
man's mental calibre. Phrenologically and physiologically,
the man was a sort of monstrosity. His frame was large,
bony and muscular. His head was small and disproportion-
ately shaped. He had large, square jaws, a large, heavy
nose, a small, lascivious mouth, soft, tender, bluish eyes. T
would say he was a cross between a A^enus and a Hercules.
I believe it to be inconsistent with the law of huirian organiza-
tion for any such creature to possess a mind capable of any-

36 "' Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 8

thin^ ^reat. The man's mind partook of the incongruities
of his hodv. Tt was the pecuHarities of his mental and the
odditv of his physical structure, as well as his head, that
singled him out from the mass of men."

Lamon says of Herndon :

"He was a lifelong abolitionist, devoted to public phi-
lanthropy and disinterested political labors. Herndon was a
fierce zealot and gloried in being called fanatic. He said
fanaticism at all times was the salt of the earth, with the pow-
er to save it. He was hot-blooded morally and physically. He
had determined to make an abolitionist out of Lincoln when
the proper time came, and he knew that time would only
be when Lincoln could change front and come out without
detriment to his personal aspirations."

Herndon's work of converting Mr. Lincoln to the abolition
cause was slow. Lincoln had not in him one particle of the stuff
martyrs are made of. Abolition at that time was unpopular in
Illinois. Lincoln was afraid to take it up and did not commit
himself to it until 1858, two years before his nomination for the
Presidency.

General Don Piatt, an officer in the Union Army, a man of
some culture and literary attainment, who knew Mr. Lincoln
personally and greatly admired him, made a study of his charac-
ter. In "Men Who Saved the Union," Piatt expresses the belief
that God especially called Lincoln to office to do the work he did.
Piatt, as well as Herndon and Lamon, did not approve of apoth-
eosizing Mr. Lincoln. These three men were anxious to have
the real Lincoln known to the world.

On this subject Piatt wrote thus :

"With us when a leader dies, all good men (meaning
stanch Republicans) go to lying about him. From the
monument tJiat covers his remains to the last echo of the
rural press, in speeches, in sermons, eulogies, reminiscences,
we hear nothing but pious lies."

Piatt refers to the lies told about Lincoln, but he makes the
mistake of calling those lies "pious." That word is usually ap-
plied to praise bestowed on the dead to please living friends and
relations. The lies told about Lincoln were told wholly and solely
for political effect, for the purpose of supporting the Republican
party. Neither Herndon, Lamon or Piatt seemed to understand
this. They wanted the truth to be known, but they did not se^m

Chap. 8 Facts and Falsehoods. 37

to perceive that the truth about Lincoln would injure the party,
would belittle and disgrace it, would put a thousand clubs into the
hands of Democrats to beat the part}- down and out of oflfice. Pol-
iticians saw this, and determined that the real Lincoln should
never be known.

"Abraham Lincoln," continued General Piatt., "has al-
most disappeared from human knowledge. I hear of him, I
. read of him in eulogies and biographies, but I fail to recog-
nize the man I knew in life."

Herndon and Lamon also failed to recognize in the eulogies
and biographies the man they knew in life. The thing they saw
was not the portrait of the real Lincoln. It was the effigy which
Republican leaders had hastily manufactured, after their apoth-
eosis ceremony, and had started down the ages labeled "Abraham
Lincoln, the first President of the Republican party, the great-
est, wisest, purest man who ever trod the earth since Jesus of
Nazareth." No man who will look at the facts of history can
doubt the truth of this.

At the time of Mr. Lincoln's death, 1865, his close and loving
friend, Lamon, determined to write his life.

"But," says Lamon, "I soon learned that Mr. William H.
Herndon was similarly engaged. There could be no rivalry
between us. The supreme object of both was to make the
real history and character of Mr. Lincoln as well known to
the public as they were to us. Mr. Herndon, as I, deplr>red
the many publications pretending to be biographies of Lin-
coln, which teemed from the press so long as there was hope
of gain. Out of the mass of these works, of only 07ie is it
possible to speak with any degree of respect."

And that one (Holland's) falsified and whitewashed.

For the above reason Lamon gave up his intention of writing
Lincoln's biography, leaving the task to Herndon. Herndon's
Life of Lincoln was published soon after Lincoln's death. Its
reception by Republicans was peculiar. Not a man at that time,
so far as I can discover, denied or expressed a doubt of its hon-
esty, its friendliness to Lincoln or of its veracity. Certain Re-
publican journals wondered why Herndon thought it necessary
to tell this and that concerning his friend's life. One or two
made favorable comments. The Glohe-Democrat, of St. Louis,
as late as 1897, ^^^ this:

"Herndon's Biography of Lincoln is, in many respects.

38 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 8

the best that has yet been written. There is no doubt that his
account is wholly trustworthy, and there is nothing more in
teresting in all the output of Lincoln literature."

The editor of the Globc-Dciiwcraf was an officer in the
Union Army.

In another issue of the GIohc-Dcinocrat we find this:

"There is no doubt that Herndon's account of Lincoln is
entirely trustworthy. Herndon and Lincoln were practically
in daily contact for over twenty years and their relations
were entirely amicable. Life went hard with Herndon in late
years (after Lincoln's death) ; he fell heir to a farm near
Springfield, dropped the law and went into fancy stock-rais-
ing, which soon resulted disastrously. Then he took to hard
drinking and not long afterward died in poverty. He was
Lincoln's law partner and closest friend for over sixteen
years. His biography of Lincoln, in many respects, is the
best one that ever has been written."

Hapgood, in 1899. wrote an apotheosizing work called
"Abraham Lincoln." Hapgood says :

"Herndon has told President Lincoln's life with the most
refreshing honestv and with more information than anv one
else."

Such being the character of Herndon's Life of Lincoln, the
reader may be surprised to learn that this work is not now to be
had for love or money. Why ?' For the one and sole reason
that it did not coincide with the apotheosis ceremony. It did
not portray the character of Abraham Lincoln as the Republican
leaders wished it to be portrayed. It pictured the real Lincoln,
not the effigy which had been hurriedl}' gotten up by the apoth-
eosizers. For these reasons, certain Republicans resolved to
spirit out of existence every copy they could get. Agents were
sent on a still hunt and every book they could find was destroyed ;
even the publisher's plates were obtained and broken to pieces.
A near relative of Herndon, in a position to know, is responsible
for this statement. This relative further states the reason was
that "Mr. Herndon had told too many truths about Lincoln."
Truth did not harmonize with the apotheosis ceremony. When,
in 1869, Lamon realized that his friend Herndon's work was pass-
ing out of existence, driven out by Republican politicians, he
returned to his intention of writing Lincoln's life. Lamon and
Herndon well understood that Republican politicians did not want

Chap. 8 Facts and FAi-SKiioons. ]<.)

the real Lincoln shown to the world, but did not seem to know
that those politicians looked upon it as a vital necessity to the
prosperity of their party to present .Mr. Lincoln to the world, not
as he was in life, not as they had known hint, but as a deified be-
ing of unparalleled greatness, wisdom and virtue. Being either
ignorant or indifferent on this matter. Lamon was as anxious as
Herndon had been to show the public his hero and friend, exactly
as he and his contemporaries in Illinois had known him. The
"venomous detractions" of politicians in Washington City had
not in the least shaken Lamon's and Herndon 's love for Lincoln.
They scouted and despised the deification twaddle which these
detractors put in play, even before the real Lincoln was cold in
his coffin. In this spirit Lamon set to work, 1869, to write the
true story of Lincoln to take the place of the suppressed w^ork
of Herndon. Poor Herndon was bitterly disappointed at the un-
merited fate of his book. He had spent a deal of money, time
and labor in gathering materials — "rich materials" — had traveled
far and wide seeking and interviewing the early friends and
relatives of Lincoln. He had hoped not only to make money by
his labor of love, but to win fame as the writer of the best biog-
raphy of the greatest man extant. Lamon paid Herndon $3,000
for the privilege of using his "rich materials." In 1872 Lamon's
Life of Lincoln was published. It certainly is the best yet writ-
ten, except Herndon's, but if my information is correct, the same
influences which swept Herndon's book out of existence are at
worjc secretly to destroy Lamon's. At this writing, February
12, 1903, it is hardly possible to obtain even a second-hand copy
of Lamon. Herndon's work was the better, inasmuch as it was
terser and made no effort to whitewash a single act of its hero.
Lamon had lived more in the world than Herndon, and felt the
necessitv of trimming and softening somewhat to suit polite so-
cietv. jMeanwhile, as Lamon put it, the press continued to teem
with "pretended lives of Lincoln, not one of which deserved one
particle of respect." These pretended biographies are fostered
and praised and cherished by Republicans. The falser they are,
the higher the praise. A short time ago a Republican paper stat-
ed that 800 different lives of Lincoln had been published.

As time passed inquiries were made for Herndon's work. To
allay curiosity as w^ell as to impose another life on the public, in
1889, twenty-four years after Lincoln's death, a three volume
book was published by Bedford, Clark & Company, in Chicago, en-
titled :

40 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 8

THE TRUE STORY OF A GREAT LIFE.
THE HISTORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY

WILLIAM H. HERNDON,
For Tzventy Years His Friend and Laiv Partner,

AND

JESSE WILLIAM WEIK, A. M.

If anyone who has ever read Mr. Herndon's suppressed Life of
Lincoln will compare it with this three-volume affair, he will know
that this last was not written by Herndon. The preface, without
doubt, is Herndon's. The body of the work shows that Mr. Weik
(as Lamon) had access to Herndon's "rich materials." But the
object of the three men, Herndon, Lamon and Weik, was not the
same. The two first really aimed to paint Lincoln as he was. Mr.
Weik wished to please the Republican party. Herndon's preface
shows that the purpose which dominated him in 1866, when he
wrote the first life of Lincoln, was unshaken. He still, 1889, be-
lieved the truth, all the truth, about Lincoln should be told, and
although his first book had been driven out of existence because
it told the truth twenty-four years later, Herndon still wanted the
truth told, and had a hope the truth would be told, and might
live and put to flight the mass of lies that flooded the country. At
this time, twenty-four years after Lincoln's death, misfortune
had overtaken Herndon. Disappointment, poverty, drink, had
broken down the stern old fanatic who had labored so many years
to convert Lincoln to the abolition cause. Weik's intention, it
seems, was to concoct a book which would just give enough truth
to interest, and not enough to oflfend the Republican apotheo-
sizers. In his preface to Mr. Weik's three volumes, Herndon
makes the following statement:

"Over twenty years ago I begun tliis book, but an active
life at the bar caused its postponement. Being now advanced
in years, I feel unable to carry out the undertaking, and am
assisted by Mr. Weik."

Being advanced in years, weakened by drink and misfortunes,
it can be easily beheved that Mr. J. W. Weik financially remu-
nerated Mr. Herndon for concealing the fact that not only had
he (Herndon) begun to write Lincoln's life over twenty years

Chap. 8 Facts and Falsehoods. 41

previous, but had written and published it, and had witnessed its
destruction by those he had imagined would set a high value on it.
Weik, no doubt, fancied his book would sell better if it were
thought to be the only life of Lincoln Herndon had written. In
the preface to this Weik book, Herndon makes the following -state-
ment of intentions which are not fulfilled in the book itself:

"With a view," says Herndon, "to throwing hght on
some attributes of Mr. Lincoln's character heretofore obscure,
these volumes are given to the world. The whole truth con-
cerning Mr, Lincoln should be known. The truth will at
last come out, and no man need hope to evade it. Some
persons will doubtless object to the narrative of certain facts
which they contend should be assigned to the tomb. Their
pretense is that no good can come from such ghastly expos-
ures. My answer is, that these facts are indispensable to a
full knowledge of Mr. Lincoln. We must have all the facts
concerning him. We must he prepared to take Mr. Lin-
coln as he was. He rose from a lower depth than any other
great man did — from a stagnant, putrid pool. I should be
remiss in my duty if I did not throw light on this part of
the picture. Mr. Lincoln was my warm, devoted friend. I
always loved him. I revere his name to this day. My pur-
pose to tell the truth about him need occasion no apprehen-
sion. God's naked truth cannot injure his fame. The world
should be told what the skeleton zvas with Lincoln, what can-
cer he had inside."

Thus wrote the honest old fanatic ; though broken in health,
though reduced to poverty, he was the same man who loved
truth and only truth. But the promises made by Herndon in the
above preface are not kept in the body of the so-called "Herndon
and Weik's Story of Lincoln." No ghastly exposures are made.
The "cancer inside" is not spoken of. The "lower depths, thr
stagnant, putrid pool," are not mentioned. On the contrary, the
larger part of this three-volume work plainly bears the apoth-
eosis stamp, but it tells some things of Lincoln's early life which
Republicans wish to bury out of sight. Consequently, even this
so-called "True Story of Lincoln" is under the ban, and almost
out of existence. I am told that Appleton has just brought out
these three volumes in one, and that certain facts incompatible
with the apotheosis plan are left entirely out. I am not anxious
to show my readers "stagnant, putrid pools," or "ghastly expos-
ures" or "inside cancers" which have no direct bearing on Mr,

42 Facts and IvM.sninooDS. Chap. 8

Lincoln'? jiiblic acts, but the character, the deeds, showing the
moral qualities of the man our boys are urged to emulate and
revere, are matters of vital concern to all Christian parents, i^^jr
this reason I shall reproduce from Herndon's suppressed Life
of Lincoln extracts showing what manner of man was the real
Lincoln.

Extracts from Herndon's suppressed Life of Lincoln found
scattered over the pages of that work, which was brought out soon
after Lincoln's death :

1. "Mr. Lincoln possessed inordinate desire to rise
in the world : to hold high positions in high offices."

2. "Mr. Lincoln always craved office."

3. "Mr. Lincoln coveted honor and was eager for pow-
er. He was impatient of any interference that delayed or
obstructed his progress."

4. "Mr. Lincoln was a shrewd and by no means an un-
selfish politician. When battling for a principle, it was after
a discreet fashion. When he was running for the Legislature
his speeches were calculated to make fair weather with all
sides. W^hen running for the United States Senate, he was
willing to make a sacrifice of opinion to further his own aspi-
rations."

5. "When Lovejo}-, the zealous abolitionist, came to
Springfield to speak against slavery, Lincoln left town to
avoid taking sides either for or against abolition. This
course practically saved Lincoln, as the people did not know
whetlier he was an abolitionist or not."

6. "Lincoln believed in protective tariff^, yet when urged
to write a letter for the public saying so, he refused, on the
ground that it would do him no good."

7. "Until Mr. Lincoln's 'house divided against itself
speech, in 1858, he was very cautious in his anti-slavery
expressions. Even after the Bloomington convention he
continued to pick his way to the front with wary steps. He
did not take his stand with the boldest agitators until just
in time to take Seward's place on the Presidential ticket ftf
i860."

8. "To be popular was to Lincoln the greatest good
in life." Yet Republicans call him 'The Martyr President.'
Do martyrs crave popularitx?

9. "Lincoln made simplicity and candor a mask to hide
his true self."

Chap. 9 Facts and Falsehoods. 43

10. "Lincoln was extremely fond of discussing politics.
He disliked work. TTe detested science and literature. No
man can put his fin,q;-er on any book written in the last or
present century (Nineteenth) that Lincoln read through. He
read but little."

11. "If ever." said Lincoln, "the American soci-
ety of the United States arc demoralized and overthrown, it
will come from the voracious desire for office, the wriggle
to live W'ithout work, toil or lal)or. from which I am not free
myself."

12. "Lincoln had no gratitude. He forgot the devotion
of his warmest friends and partisans as soon as the occasion
of their service had passed.'"

13. "Lincoln seldom ])raised anyone; never a rival."

14. "Lincoln never permitted himself to be influenced
by the claims of individual men. When he was a candidate
himself he thought the whole canvass ought to be conducted
with reference to his success. He would .say to a man. 'Your
continuance in the field injures inc.' and be quite sure he
had given a perfect reason for the man's withdrawal. He
would have no obstacle in his way.

15. "Lincoln was intensely cautious. He revealed just
enough of his plans to allure support and not enough to ex-
pose him to personal opposition."

16. "When first a candidate for the L^nited States Senate
Lincoln was willing to sacrifice his own opinion to further
hi» aspirations for the Presidency."

17. "Notwithstanding Lincoln's over- weening ambi-
tion, and the breathless eagerness wnth which he pursued
the object of it. he had not a particle of sympathy with any
of his fellow-citizens who were engaged in a similar scram-
ble for place and power."

CHAPTER IX.

LincoJyi's Jealousy. Lincoln's Passion for Cock-Hg^hts and Fist
Fii:;hfs. Holland's Comment Thereon. Lincoln the "Soul
of Honesty." He Passes off Counterfeit Money. Lincoln
Sewed up Hoi:^s' Eyes. The "Old Hu.::cy" Kicks Lincoln
Senseless. A Great Fight. "I Am the Big Buck of the
Lick." ^ .

Lamon gives the same account of Lincoln's political char-
acter. Lamon speaks of Lincoln's "burning ambition for dis-

44 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 9

tinction," which never abated, never ceased till life ceased. Yet
neither Herndon or Lamon even hint that any higher, less selfish
motive than desire to lift himself in the world inspired Lincoln's
struggle for office. We are not told that Lincoln had plans or
dreamed dreams that if he attained high place he would use it
for the benefit of unfortunate humanity, of the downtrodden.
Since Lincoln's death his apotheosizers attribute high motives
to him, but there is no proof. Those who best knew him saw no
such motives, and, in fact, themselves did not seem to know such
motives were desirable or expected. Modern Republicans call
Lincoln the "martyr" President, and say "he fell a martyr in the
cause of negro freedom." Those who well knew him assert he
was wholly indiflFerent to the fat'e of the negroes. Piatt tes-
tifies that Lincoln "had no more sympathy for the negro race
than he had for the horse he worked or the hog he killed."
in all history I know of no public man who possessed less of the
stufif martyrs are made of than Lincoln. Was ever a martyr
"eager for worldly honors?" Did any man with three drops of
martyr blood in his heart deem "popularity the greatest good in
life?" Would any man, zealous in the cause of negro freedom,
run out of the town to avoid speaking on the subject? Self-
seeking politicians are too common for one to wonder at Mr.
Lincoln's self-seeking nature ; such traits might be passed quietly
by but for the fact that he is held up before the youth of this
country as the model man whom they must emulate and revere.
The very writers who record the ignoble traits of Mr. Lincoln's
character themselves seem to be unconscious of the mean nature
of such traits. Herndon and Lamon both picture the scene in
which Mr. Lincoln stands up the central figure in a rowdy crowd
of men, swinging about his head a bottle of whiskey, vaunting
himself, shouting out, "I am the big buck of the lick ! If any
man wants to fight, let him come on and whet his horns !" Yet
neither of these lovers of Mr. Lincoln seem to see the scene as
any ordinary man of refinement must see it.

On page 341 of Lamon's Life of Lincoln we find this:
"Mr. Douglas' great success in obtaining place and
distinction (in advance of Mr. Lincoln) was a standing of-
fense to Mr. Lincoln's self-love and individual ambition.
He was intensely jealous of Douglas and longed to pull him
down and outstrip him in the race for popular favor, which
both considered the chief end of man."

1 f this be true, and I have found nothing in any history of

Chap. 9 Facts and Falsehoods. 45

Mr. Lincoln's life (except unsupported assertions) to contradict
its trntli, it shows a man of mean and selfish nature. Jealousy
is a feeling born of selfishness. No generous, large-minded man
or woman can be jealous of another's success. In the case of
Lincoln and Douglas, it appears that neither man was inspired
by any feeling higher than the desire for his own individual suc-
cess ; neither seems to have cherished the hope of serving his fel-
low-men. Since the apotheosis ceremony, Republican writ-
ers and politicians assert and re-assert the fiction that from boy-
hood up the great ambition of Lincoln's heart was to free slaves.
This is false, as those few who knew Lincoln well have stated
time and again. The foregoing extracts from Herndon throws
some light on Mr. Lincoln's political character. I will now give
extracts from Herndon and Lamon, showing Mr. Lincoln's every
dav social life — the amusements and the companions he was fond
of.'

Herndon says:

"Lincoln's highest delight was to be in the midst of a
crowd of rowdy men, engaged in a fist fight with some man,
while the crowd betted on the result. Money, whiskey,
knives, tobacco, all sorts of small properties were at stake.
Lincoln was uncommonly muscular. It is related that he
could lift a barrel of whiskey and drink out of its bung hole.
Lincoln's next highest delight was in talking over these fist
fights."

Lamon and Herndon both say :

"Lincoln was extremely fond of horse races and cock
fights, and had a passion to spin yarns on street corners or
in grocery stores (dram shops) to a crowd of boys. Yarns
always too vulgar to be repeated. These yarns Lincoln
would tell in the presence of preachers. He could not realize
the oflFense of telling a vulgar yarn if a preacher was pres-
ent."

It is to be hoped the great majority of self-respecting men
will not tell vulgar yarns in anybody's presence.

Hapgood calls Lincoln's passion for fist fights, cock fights
and horse races "an innocent sporting tendency." Is there a
Christian mother or father in America who would not be pained
to know their sons indulged in "innocent sporting tendencies" of
this sort?

Mr. Holland boldly says of this period of Lincoln's life :

46 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 9

"He was a man after God's own pattern."
Holland makes this remarkable statement :

"Living- among' the roughest men, man\ addicted to the
coarsest vices, Lincoln never acquired a vice. There was no
taint on his moral character. No stimulant ever entered
his lips. X'o profanity ever came from them."

Lamon, Herndon, Dennis Hanks (Lincoln's cousin, brought
up in the same town with Lincoln, as intimate as a brother), and
others testif\ that Lincoln drank whiskey drams, but he was not
a drunkard. Lamon says Lincoln always took his dram when
asked, and ])layed seven-up at night and made a good game.
Holland admits Lincoln's passion for telling "vulgar stories, too
indecent to be printed." To many persons this passion appears
to be a verv serious vice— a vice if indulged in by sons or daugh-
ters would deeply pain any decent parent.

Mr. Hay, present Secretary of State, said of Lincoln: "He
was the finest character since Christ." It is hardly possible that
Mr. Hay was ignorant of Lincoln's real character. It is hardly
possible that he did not know the opinions which Lincoln's con-
temporaries in \\'ashington City held of him during his life. Yet
in support of the apotheosis ceremony, Mr. Hay thinks it nec-
essary to talk twaddle about Mr. Lincoln.

"Abe," says Lamon (page 56), never liked ardent spir-
its, but he took his dram as others did. He was a natural
politician, extremely ambitious and anxious to be popular.
For this reason, and this alone, he drank with the boys. If
he could have avoided drinking without giving offense, he
gladly would have done it. But he coveted the applause of
his pot-companions, and because he could not get it other-
wise, he made pretense of enjoying his liquor as they did.
The people drank, and Abe was always for doing what the
people did. Abe was often at the Gentryville grocerv, and
would stay long at night, telling stories and cracking jokes."

"Pot-companions," and this is the man Republicans tell our
boys was like unto Christ. Do these men wish to make infitlels
of American boys? How can any boy reverence Jesus of Naz-
areth if he believes he was like Abraham Lincoln? Drank drams
and told indecent stories to his "pot-companions."

Mr. Herndon's suppressed Life of Lincoln says:

"Lincoln disliked the society of ladies. He wriggled
and squirmed when in their presence, anxious to get away."

Chap. 9 Facts and Falsehoods. 47

Some of Lincoln's bioijraphies. written according to the
apotheo.sis plan, boldly assert that Lincoln was very fond of the
society of refined ladies. Refined ladies were the sort Lincoln
most disliked — he felt restrained in their presence. X^o man who
knew Lincoln said he was fond of ladies' society.

Herndon says :

"Lincoln was the soul of honesty, lie was called Hon-
est Abe Lincoln."

"Honesty was Lincoln's polar star."

Mr. Lincoln appears not to have possessed what is called
the "money grip." Lie cared little for money. He never made
exorbitant charges for his law services. Money was not his pas-
sion. His instincts did not lead him into crooked ways to get
money, or mto mean ways to keep it. Politics was Lincoln's pas-
sion. \\'as he honest in politics? Both Lamon and Herndon
testify that he deceived and used trickery to gain votes. Is it
not as dishonest to gain votes by false pretense as to gain money?
Are American boys to be taught that political dishonesty is hon-
orable? But, on money matters, as on other questions. Mr. Lin-
coln's biographers have hazy ideas of honest}'. Instance the
following story applaudingly related by Lamon and other biog-
raphers : \A'hen Lincoln was nineteen years old he hired to Mr.
Gentry to go with his young son, Allen Gentry, on a flatboat down
the Mississippi River on a trading trip. The boat was loaded
with produce to be sold to farmers settled on the river bank. Lin-
coln's duty was to help row the boat and help sell the produce,
for which he was paid eight dollars per month. In the course
of his business, yotmg Gentry received a quantity of counterfeit
money. "Never mind," said Lincoln, "I will pass it off on some
other fellow," which he did. Of this transaction. Lamon says:

"The trip of young Gentry and Lincoln was a very prof-
itable one. Abe displayed his genius for mercantile affairs
by handsomely passing off on the innocent folks along the
river some counterfeit money which had been imposed on
yoimg Gentry."

Shall the youth of this country be taught that to "pass coun
terfeit money on innocent folks" displays "genius for mercantile
affairs?" To applaud dishonesty is to teach dishonesty. After
relating the counterfeit money story. Lamon put the following
note at the bottom of the page :

48 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 9

"It must be remembered that counterfeit money was the
principal currency along the river at that period."

This is not true. It has always been in this country a pen-
itentiary offense to pass counterfeit money. The settlers along
the river were neither fools nor savages. Many were educated
men and women, emigrants from the Atlantic States. They well
knew the danger and dishonesty of passing counterfeit money.
I have talked on this subject with old men who lived on the river
bank at that time. They assure me it was always known to be as
dishonest to pass counterfeit money as to steal, and men caught
so doing were tried and sent to the penitentiary, as the law com-
manded.

"Lincoln," says Herndon, "was tender-hearted." Many of
Lincoln's biographers dwell on this tender-hearted virtue. Don
Piatt made a study of Lincoln's character ; says he was not tender-
hearted. On the contrary, was callous and unfeeling. Of this,
more anon. After stating that his friend Lincoln was tender-
hearted, Herndon relates the following:

"When about twenty-one years old. Lincoln hired for $8
per month to work on a flatboat going to New Orleans with
a load of grain and live stock. He and two other men under-
took to drive a drove of hogs on the boat. The animals
would not walk the plank leading from the land to the boat.
They would run past the plank. Lincoln suggested that
they should blind the hogs by sewing their eyes up. Being
very strong. Lincoln caught the hogs one by one. held their
heads tightly. A second man held the feet, while the third
man, with needle and thread, sewed up the animals' eyelids
so they could not see. This device did not succeed. The
hogs still refused to walk the plank. Then the strong Lin-
coln again seized the hogs one by one. carried them on the
boat, held their heads as in a vice while another man cut the
stitches and restored vision to the animals."

Was this tender-heartedness^ Biographers give anecdotes
like the above, apparently blind to their repulsive nature. The
following is also related by Herndon, who was told the story by
Mr. Lincoln, as he (Lincoln) said, "to illustrate a scientific fact."

"It was Lincoln's duty, when a youth in his father's
house, to put a sack of corn on the old mare, ride to the mill
and grind it. Each man's animal was expected to work the
mill machinery, and each man made his animal do the work.

Chap. 9 Facts' and Falsehoods. 49

As the old Lincoln mare plodded round and round, Lincoln
applied the lash, and with every lash, to hurry her into fast-
er movements, Lincoln yelled out, "Get up, you old huzzy!"

Even an old "huzzy" resents injustice. After the old mare
had patiently borne many lashes, just as young Lincoln said "get
up" for the fiftieth time, her patience gave out, she lifted her
hind foot and landed it square between Lincoln's eyes, and he fell
insensible and lay insensible all night. On coming to conscious-
ness he finished the sentence cut short by the mare's heels, shout-
ing "you old huzzy!"

Is it insanity or pure mendacity to liken a man of this na-
ture to the gentle and loving Nazarene ? Who for an instant can
imagine Jesus swinging a bottle of whiskey around his head,
swearing to the rowdy crowd that he was the "big buck of the
lick?" Or with a whip in his hand, lashing a faithful old slave
at every round of her labor? Who can imagine Jesus sewing up
hogs' eyes? What act of Lincoln's life betrays tender-hearted-
ness? Was he tender-hearted when he made medicine contra-
band of war? When he punished women caught with a bottle
of quinine going South ? The laws of war of all civilized people
exempt surgeons' and hospital supplies from capture or intent of
harm. Not only did Lincoln prevent medicine from going South,
but when the whole South was devastated, when she was unable,
properly, to feed and medicine the Union soldiers in her pris-
ons, the Southerners paroled a Federal prisoner and sent him with
a message to Lincoln, informing him of the South's condition
in that respect, and telling him if he would send his own surgeons
with medical supplies they would be allowed to minister to the
needs of the Union men in prison. Lincoln refused. Was this
tender-hearted? When Greeley implored Lincoln not to inaugu-
rate war on the South, and told him if he "rushed on carnage"
he would clearly put himself in the wrong, was it tender-hearted
to despise Greeley's prayer, rush on carnage, and for four years
drench the whole Southland with human blood? And when Lin-
coln's legions were devastating the South, when with wanton cru-
elty, at the point of the bayonet, Sherman drove 15,000 women
and children of Atlanta, Georgia, out of their homes, out of the
city, to wander in the woods, shelterless, foodless, and then laid
the whole city in ashes, did Lincoln give one thought to the suf-
ferings of those innocent women and children? Did he once, dur-
ing the four years of the cruel war, utter or write one kind word

50 Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap. 9

of the people on whom he had brought such unspeakable misery ?
When some of the South's naval men were captured, and Lin-
coln ordered that they should be hanged as pirates, and threw
them in loathsome dungeon cells to await hanging, was that ten-
der-hearted ? In the last war between Germany and France, how
much wore huiranely did the conquering Germans treat the con-
quered French? \\'hen Butler, sometimes called "the beast," in
public speeches made in Xorthern cities, in newspapers, in legends,
put up in big letters in his office, defamed and denounced the
women of New Orleans as ''she adders" and "she devils, " and
issued Order 28. which shocked all the civilized people of earth
( except Russians and the Republican party), did Lincoln sav one
kind word of those so basely wronged women of New Orleans?
In Butler's Book he boasts that Lincoln, and every other Repub-
lican, approved his course in Xew Orleans { including his abuse
and falsehoods about the women of that city,) and the infamous
Order 2S. which licensed his soldiery to insult and assault women
at their pleasure. When, befouled all over by that foul order. But-
ler went from Xew Orleans to Washington City, not one of the
foreign ministers called on Butler except the Russian. In his
history of the L'nited States. Rhodes virtually charges Butler
with telling falsehoods about a certain transaction between him
and Grant, but Avhen Butler basely defames and lies outright on
evciy woman in X'ew Orleans, Rhodes is ready enough to accept
his lies as gospel truths, without any attempt at investigation. Such
is the justice of Republican writers. The customs of civilized
people forbid, in wars, the destruction of growing vines
and crops, and the wanton burning of private homes. These cus-
toms or laws were trampled imder foot by the Repul>lican party
and its invading legions, and Lincoln exultantly congratulated
his generals for the cruel work they did. The generals of the
army were expressly ordered to destroy everything, to make the
Southland a desert waste. A\'hile Sheridan was engaged in this
rcnoi .-eless work, Grant telegraphed him. "Do all the damage
vciu can. Destrov the crops. We want the Shenandoah Valley
a barren waste. We want \'irginia clear and clean, so that a
crow flying over it will have to carry his ration or starve to
death," For one whole month Sheridan and his legions carried
on this cruel work, and at last when the valley indeed was a
desert waste, and thousands of women and children wandered
in the woods and fields, homeless and hungry. Lincoln, the ten-
der-hearted (God save the mark!) gleefully sent a telegram of
congratulation to Sheridan.

Chap. 9 Pacts and Falshiiodds. 51

"I tender you and your brave army my thanks," said
Lincoln, "and the thanks of the Nation, and my personal
admiration for your month's operation in Shenandoah Val-
ley, and especially for the splendid work."

The "'especially splendid work" that pleased Lincoln was
the cruel work of burning homes and turning women and chil-
dren out into the devastated fields to starve and die. Lincoln
took it upon himself, as all despots do. to speak for the X^ation.
If by the "Nation" is meant the great body of people, the large
majority, Mr. Lincoln had no right to assume that the Northern
Nation thanked Sheridan for his remorseless work. The Na-
tion's sympathies at that time were with the South. On page
47 of the \\'eik"s and Herndon Story of a Great Life is the fol-
lowing story:

"In the noted fight between Abraham Lincoln's step-
brother and \\'illiam Grigsby, John Johnson (the step-
brother), William Grigsby and Abe himself played a stirring
part. Taylor's brother was the second for Johnson ; Wil-
liam White was Grigsby's second. They had a terrible fight.
It soon became apparent that Grigsby was too much for Lin-
coln's man, Johnson. It had been agreed that no one was to
break the ring, but when Abe saw that his man was get-
ting the worst of the fight he burst through the ring, caught
Grigsby. threw him off some feet distant : then up stood
Lincoln, proud as Lucifer, swinging a bottle of liquor over
his head and swearing aloud. T am the big buck of the lick!'
he shouted. Tf anybody doubts it let them come on and
whet his horns.'

A general fight followed this challenge, at the end of which
the field was cleared, .the wounded retired amid the exultant
shouts of the victors. In Lamon's "Life of Lincoln" the story is
related thus:

"The ground for the fight was one mile and a half from
Gentryville. The bullies for twenty miles around attended ;
the friends of both parties were present in force ; excitement
ran high. When Abe's man, Johnson, was down and Bill
Grigsby was on top, and all the spectators swearing and
cheering, crowded up to the edge of the ring. Abe burst out
of the crowd into the ring, seized Grigsby by the heels and
threw him off ; then he swung a bottle of whisky over his
head and swore he was the big buck of the lick. Not one in
the large crowd cared to encounter the long sweep of Abe's

OF iLU^uK

52 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, io

muscular arms, and so he remained master of the Hck. Not
content, however, with this triumph, he vaunted himself in
the most oflfensive manner, made hostile demonstrations to-
ward Grigsby, declaring he could whip him then and there.
Grigsby meekly replied he did not doubt it, but if Abe would
make things even, and fight with pistols, he would willingly
give him a fight. Abe replied : 'I am not going to fool away
my life on a single shot.' "

Is this a man American youths should be taught to reverence
and emulate? Is this a picture to present for the admiration of
our sons and daughters? Yet of this man apotheosizing writers
dare to say, "He as nearly resembles Christ as human nature

can."

CHAPTER X.

Mr. Lincoln Hates and Despises Christianity. He Goes to Church
to Mock and Deride. "Pious Lies." Holland's Strange Story.
Other Republican Leaders Deride Christianity. The Four
Ws.

It is quite possible that many true and trustworthy men have
been unbelievers in the Bible as the word of God. Many men
liave doubted and denied the divinity of Christ. Good men have
claimed that Jesus w^as only a good man whose sublime moral
teachings brought on Him the wrath of rulers. Mr. Lincoln's
unbelief was more aggressive than the ordinary infidel's ; he dis-
liked and despised Christianity as if it were an enemy to human-
ity. He had no appreciation for the sublime truths taught by
Jesus of Nazareth. Since the apotheosis ceremony, and especially
since the contemporaries of Mr. Lincoln have nearly all passed
away, it has become the custom of biographers to show up Mr.
Lincoln as a very religious man. Mr. Holland, Noah Brooks and
Miss Tarbell take the lead of all romancers on this subject. These
writers throw facts to the wind, and, as Gen. Piatt puts it, fill
their pages with "pious lies." Pious lies of this nature greatly
annoyed Herndon and Lamon. Both Herndon and Lamon took
time and labor trying to kill these pious lies, but after Herndon 's
and Lamon's death pious lies became more numerous, bold and
audacious than ever. In his suppressed "Life of Lincoln" Hern-
don says:

"Lincoln was a deep-grounded infidel. He disliked and
despised churches. He never entered a church except to
scolT and ridicule. On coming from a church he would

I

Chap, io Facts and Falsehoods. 53

mimic the preacher. Before running for any office he wrote
a book against Christianity and the Bible. He showed it to
some friends and read extracts. A man named Hill was
greatly shocked and urged Lincoln not to publish it. Urged
it would kill him politically. Hill got this book in his hands,
opened the stove door, and it went up in flames and ashes.
After that, Lincoln became more discreet, and when running
for office often used words and phrases to make it appear that
he was a Christian. He never changed on this subject. He
lived and died a deep-grounded infidel."

Lamon, who was very intimate with Lincoln during the lat-
ter's Presidency, as well as before, says he never changed. Nico-
lay and Hay say the same. Yet since Lincoln's deification nearly
every eulogist, lecturer and biographer of Lincoln assert that he
was a sincere Christian. Many of Lincoln's relations and friends
testify that he scoffed and derided religion and the Bible.

On the subject of Mr. Lincoln's religious ideas, Lamon, who,
during Lincoln's four years in the White House, was closer to
him than any other man, wrote as follows in 1872 :

"No phase of Mr. Lincoln's character has been so per-
sistently misrepresented as this of his religious belief. Not
that the conclusive testimony of many of his intimate asso-
ciates and relations relative to his frequent expressions on
such subjects have ever been wanting, but his great promi-
nence in history, his extremely general expressions of re-
ligious faith called forth by the exigencies of his public life,
or indulged in on occasion of private condolence have been
distorted out of relation to their real significance or mean-
ing to suit the opinion or tickle the fancy of individuals or
parties."

Mr. Lamon might have added to the above the fact that
after the Republican leaders had performed the apotheosis cere-
mony they deemed it best for the honor and maintenance of their
party to bury out of sight Mr. Lincoln's real character, and to
pose him before the world as the greatest and purest man born
since Christ, and at the same time they decreed that from the
hour of Mr. Lincoln's death* he was to be pictured as a sincere
and true Christian. If Lamon knew that the Republicans thought
it for the interest of their party that Mr. Lincoln should be repre-
sented as a Christian, he dared to differ from them and did his
best to down falsehoods on this subject. Some biographers assert
that "when a boy, Lincoln was of a grave and reHgious nature;

54 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, id

that he often retired from company and read the Bible, on his
knees, and otherwise manifested a reverential and religious turn
of mind." Herndon says Lincoln was deficient in reverence for
any thing or person. Lincoln's stepmother denied that he ''ever
went into a corner to ponder the sacred writings and wet the
pages with his tears of penitence."

Dennis Hanks is clear on this point. He denied that his
cousin Abe was ever reverential, and denied that he liked sacred
songs, and testifies that the songs Lincoln was fond of were of
a very questionable character.

"When Lincoln went to church," says Lamon and
Hanks, "he went to mock and came away to mimic. When
he went to New Salem he consorted with free thinkers and
joined with them in deriding the gospel story of Jesus. He
wrote a labored book on this subject, which his friend Hill
put in the stove and burned up. Not until after Mr. Lin-
coln's death were these facts denied." (See Lamon's "Life
of Lincoln.")

In the face of abundant and unimpeachable evidence proving
that Lincoln was a deep-grounded infidel, unscrupulous biogra-
phers continue to assert that he was a true Christian. Nicolay,
who was Mr. Lincoln's private secretary during his Presidency,
said on this subject:

"Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way
change his religious views or beliefs from the time he left
Springfield till his death."

HerndoiT, the most faithful friend of Lincoln, was so out-
raged at the falsehoods put forth about Lincoln's piety in the
"pretended biographies" of his life that in 1870 he wrote a letter
to Lamon, from which the following is taken :

"In New Salem Mr. Lincoln lived with a class of men,
moved with them, had his being with them. They were
scoffers of religion, made loud protests against the follow-
ers of Christianity. They declared that Jesus was an illegiti-
mate child. On all occasions that offered they debated on
the various forms of Christianity. They riddled old divines,
and not infrequently made those very divines skeptics by
their logic ; made them disbelievers as bad as themselves.
In 1835 Lincoln wrote a book on infidelity and intended to
have it published. The book w^as an attack on the idea that
Jesus was Christ. Lincoln read the book to his friend Hill.

Chap, io Facts and Falsehoods. 55

Hill tried to persuade him not to publish it. Lincoln said it
should be published. Hill, believing that if the book was
published it would kill Lincoln forever as a politician, seized
it and thrust it in the stove. It went up in smoke and ashes
before Lincoln could get it out. When Mr. Lincoln was can-
didate for the Legislature he was accused of being an infidel,
and of having said that Jesus was an illegitimate child. He
never denied it, never flinched from his views on religion.
In 1854 he made me erase the name of God from a speech
I was about to make. He -did this to one of his friends in
Washington City. In the year 1847 Mr. Lincoln ran for
Congress against the Rev. Peter Cartright. He was accused
of being an infidel ; he never denied it. He knew it could
and would be proved on him. I know when he left Spring-
field for Washington he had undergone no change in his
opinion on religion. He held many of the Christian ideas in
abhorrence. He held that God could not forgive sinners.
The idea that Mr. Lincoln carried a Bible in his bosom or in
his boots to draw on his opponent is ridiculous."'

Lincoln's cousin, Dennis Hanks, testifies:

"At an early age Abe began to attend the preachings
around about, but mostly at the Pigeon Creek Church, with
a view to catching anything that might be ludicrous in the
preaching, in the manner or matter, and making it a sub-
ject of mimicry as soon as he could collect a crowd of idle
boys and men to hear him. He frequently reproduced a ser-
mon with nasal twang, rolling his eyes, and all sorts of droll
aggravations, to the great delight of the wild fellows assem-
bled. Sometimes he broke out with stories passably humor-
ous and invariably vulgar."

In Lamon's "Life of Lincoln," page 55. he says:

"It is important that this question should be finally set-
tled. The names of some of Mr. Lincoln's nearest friends
are given below, followed by clear and decisive statements
for which they are responsible, and all of them of high char-
acter, men who had the best opportunities to form a correct
opinion as to Mr. Lincoln's religious ideas."

The following are samples of evidence on this subject. Mr.
Jesse E. Fall reluctantly testifies :

"Mr. Lincoln's friends were not a little surprised at
finding in some biographies statements of his religious opin-

56 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 10

ions so utterly at variance with his known sentiments. Lin-
coln held opinions utterly at variance with what are taught
in the churches."

William H. Herndon testifies:

"Mr. Lincoln told me a thousand times that he did not
believe that the Bible was any revelation from God. I assert
this of my own knowledge ; others will confirm what I say."
After Lincoln's death his wife wrote Lamon :

"Mr. Lincoln had no hope and- no faith in Christianity."
Lamon testifies that "Lincoln never changed his opinions of
the Christian religion, but he became discreet in talking of
them."

John Matthews testifies as follows:

"I knew Mr. Lincoln as early as 1834; knew he was
an infidel. He attacked the Bible and the New Testament ;
he talked infidelity, ridiculed both Bible and Testament.
He often shocked me, he went so far. He often came into
the clerk's ofiice, where I and other young men were writing.
He brought a Bible with him, read a chapter and argued
against it. He wrote a book on infidelity. I was his per-
sonal and political friend. I never heard that he changed
his views."

On page 497 Lamon says :

"While it is clear that Mr. Lincoln was at all times an
infidel, it is also very clear that he was not at all times equally
willing that everybody should know it. He never offered to
purge or recant ; he was a wily politician and did not disdain
to regulate his religious manifestations with reference to his
political interest. He saw the immense and augmenting
power of the churches, and in times past had felt it. The
charge of infidelity had seriously injured him in several of
his earlier political campaigns. Aspiring to lead religious
communities, he saw he must not appear as an enemy within
their gates. He saw no reason for changing his convic-
tions, but he saw many good and cogent reasons for not
making them public."

In 1865 Mr. Holland wrote (to borrow Lamon's words) a
"pretended Life of Lincoln," which shows lamentable disregard
for truth and lamentable perversion of the moral sense. Having
fully accepted the apotheosis decree regarding the dead Presi-
dent, Mr. Holland very much desired to present to the public

Chap, io Facts and Falsehoods. ' 57

Mr. Lincoln as being a good and true Christian. To do this, in
the face of strong evidence to the contrary, also in the face of
the fact that hundreds of friends and relatives of Mr. Lincoln
were still living, who could and would contradict misstatements,
was the problem Mr. Holland had to contend with. After think-
ing the matter over, Mr. Holland finally inserted in his Life of
Lincoln the best story he could find to prove that Mr. Lincoln
was a devout Christian. If this story be true, it would show Mr.
Lincoln to have been more infamous than any open and avowed
infidel the world knows of. We give the story as given in Mr.
Holland's Life of Lincoln, The reader must judge for himself:

Extracts from Holland's Life of Lincoln:

"During one of Mr. Lincoln's political campaigns, a few
days before the election, he took a book containing a careful
canvass of the city of Spring^eld, showing the candidates
for whom each citizen had declared his intention to vote,
and called Mr. Newton Bateman into his office to a seat
by his side, carefully locking the door. 'Let us look over
this book,' said Lincoln. T particularly wish to see how the
ministers of the churches are going to vote.' Newton Bate-
man was Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State
of Illinois. Turning over the leaves one by one, Lincoln
counted up the names ; then with a face full of sadness said :
'Here are twenty-three ministers of different denominations,
and all of them are against me, and here are a great many
prominent members of the churches, a very large majority
of whom are against me. I don't understand this. I am not
a Christian. God knows I would be one.'

"Drawing from his bosom a pocket Testament, his
cheeks wet with tears, with a trembling voice he quoted it
(the Testament) against his political opponents, especially
against Douglas. He said the opinions adopted by him (Lin-
coln) and his party were derived from the teachings of
Christ, and asserted that Christ was God. The Testament
he carried in his bosom he called 'The rock on which I
stand.' Mr. Bateman, himself a Christian, said: 'Mr. Lin-
coln, I had not supposed that you were accustomed to think
so much on this subject ; certainly, your friends are ignorant
of the sentiments you have expressed to me.' 'I know it.'
he replied promptly. 'T know they are. I am obliged to
appear different to them. I am willing you should know
the truth.' "

^8 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, id

On this story Mr. Holland makes the following curious
comment :

"Why Mr. Lincoln should say he was obliged to appear
an infidel to others does not appear. It is more than prob-
able that on leaving Mr. Bateman, Lincoln met some of his
old friends, and by a single bound from his tearful and sub-
lime religious passion he told them some jest that filled his
heart with mirth and awoke convulsions of laughter."

"Tearful and sublime religious passion!" What apotheosis
twaddle is this! Of this Holland story Lamon says:

"If Mr. Lincoln told Bateman that he did not under-
stand why the Christian ministers and the other religious
men refused to vote for him, he spoke falsely. Mr. Lin-
coln well knew they opposed him because he was an open
and avowed infidel ; one who blatantly strove to make con-
verts of young Christian men."

Both Bateman and Holland were professed Christians. If
one or both together concocted this story for the purpose of lift-.
ing from Mr. Lincoln the stigma of infidelity, their moral sense
must have been singularly perverted not to see that the story
they told would cover Mr. Lincoln with blacker infamy than
any unbelief in Christianity could possibly do. I can conceive
of no greater baseness than the acts this Holland-Bateman story
attributes to Mr. Lincoln. That man must be utterly conscience-
less, not to say fiendishly malignant, who, himself convinced of
the truth, the saving grace of Christianity, uses his power of
logic, his power of sarcasm, his gift of eloquence, to turn Chris-
tian men and youths against the faith he himself believed to be
divine ! Unimpeachable evidence proves that Mr. Lincoln often
seized occasions to —

"Go into offices where young men were writing, with a
Bible in his pocket, from which he would read chapters
and verses and then denounce, deride and argue against
the Bible and Christianity."

It is proved that Mr. Lincoln, with others of like nature,
would get together and scofif at the Christian faith, calling Jesus
an impostor, a bastard child, and other opprobious epithets. Yet
Mr. Holland would have his readers believe that all the time
Lincoln was doing his best to bring contempt on Christianity he
himself was a devoutly religious man. Some biographers ignore
all evidence and serenely persist in the assertion that Mr. Lin-

Chap, io Facts and Falsehoods. 59

coin was a fervent Christian and was "often seen on his knees
before an open Bible, praying, while the tears streamed down
his face." Biographers of this sort write under the full glare
of the apotheosis ceremony, which blinds the vision of all faith-
ful Republicans.

In Mr. Holland's "pretended" Life of Lincoln is the fol-
lowing :

"Mr. Lincoln will always be remembered as eminently
a Christian President. Conscience, not popular applause, not
love of power, was the ruling motive of Lincoln's life. There
was no taint to Lincoln's moral character. No stimulant
ever entered his mouth ; no profanity ever came from his
lips."

"The people all drank," says Lamon ; "even the women drank
whiskey toddies. The men took whiskey straight. Abe was al-
ways for doing what the people did, right or wrong. Dennis
Hanks, Lincoln's cousin, brought up with him, wrote to Hern-
don, who was then writing Lincoln's Life, saying: 'Go the
whole hog ; keep nothing back about Lincoln.' Hanks was op-
posed to whitewashing."

Hapgood, page 183, says:

"All the clergy in Springfield voted against Lincoln."

Other great Republican leaders in that cruel period not
only had no faith in Christianity, but so hated it they never
missed a chance to cast scorn and gibes at its founder. The
Lancaster (Pa.) Intelligencer, published at the home of Thad-
deus Stevens, said of him :

"During all his lifetime Thaddeus Stevens has openly
scoffed at the Christian religion. Some years before the
war, while trying a case in another part of the State, one
of the lawyers quoted from the Bible. 'Oh,' retorted Stev-
ens, 'the Bible is nothing but obsolete history of a barbarous
people.' "

In a speech made during the impeachment proceedings,
Stevens referred to the Savior as that "individual Judas Iscariot
betrayed."

Carl Schurz was a reviler of Christianity. Schurz thought
it fine wit to refer to Jesus of Nazareth as "that ideal gentle-
man beyond the skies called by some people God." Some of
those leaders not only cast aside religious restraints, but cut
themselves loose from the ordinary rules of decency. Senator

6o Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, ii

McDonald boasted that he had planted his feet on the platform
of the four Ws, "Wine, Whiskey, Women, War."

Thaddeus Stevens was so pleased with this he boasted that
his feet also stood on that platform.

The cruel and utterly unjust war waged on the South by
the Republican party in the 6o's seems to have obliterated every
vestige of moral conscience, and all sense of right and wrong in
some of the politicians of that party. Instance the following
paragraph, cut from a Republican journal, the Globe-Democrat
of St. Louis, October 17, 1897. The Globe-Democrat editor, dis-
cussing which of two courses his party should pursue, com-
placently remarks :

"It matters not which we do, but we must all do the
same. 'Which is our scoundrel?' asked Thaddeus Stevens,
in one of the controversies growing out of the reconstruc-
tion policy, 'that we may all defend him.' "

To defend their party's dead or living scoundrels is the high-
est duty of Republicans. Thad Stevens' proposition was worthy
of him and of the heUish policy he was discussing.

CHAPTER XL

Lincoln's Singular Treatment of the Lady He Four Times Asked
to Marry Him. His Curious Letter About That Lady. His
Cruel Treatment of Miss Todd. His Home a Hell on Earth.

Herndon and Lamon both say that Mr. Lincoln proposed
marriage to three women. The first was Miss Rutledge, who
was already engaged to a man whom she truly loved, who had
gone East and remained so long her family, thinking he had
forgotten his engagement, persuaded her to accept Lincoln's
offer. Herndon, in his suppressed Life of Lincoln, says that
Miss Rutledge could not love Lincoln, and before marriage pined
and died in the belief that her first and only love had forgotten
her. This was an error ; the lover had suffered a long and tedious
illness and returned to find the girl dead. The second woman
Lincoln courted was a Miss Owens of Kentuckv. Herndon de-
scribes Miss Owens as a handsome, well-educated, bright young
woman, just one year older than Lincoln, weighing 150 pounds,
and having some fortune. Lincoln was twenty-eight. Miss Owens
twenty-nine years old. The age and weight of this lady cut an
important figure in this affair, and should be borne in mind by
the reader. Lincoln himself tells the story of his courtship of

Chap, i i Facts and Falsehoods. 6i

Miss Owens in a letter to his friend, Mrs. Browning. Both La-
mon and Herndon insert this letter verbatim in their story of
Lincoln's life. Lamon introduces it by the following remarks :
"If this letter could be withheld and the act decently
reconciled to the conscience of the biographer professing to
be honest and candid, this letter never should see the light in
these pages. Its coarse exaggeration in describing the per-
son the writer was willing to marry, its imputation of 'tooth-
less, weather-beaten old age,' to a really young and hand-
some lady, its utter lack of delicacy, its defective orthog-
raphy, all this it would be more agreeable to suppress than
to publish. But if we begin to mutilate a document which
throws a broad light on one phase of Mr. Lincoln's char-
acter, why may we not do the like as fast and as often as the
temptation may arise?"

Mutilations of this nature were precisely what Republican
writers were expected to make in obedience to the decree of the
apotheosizing Republican politicians.

In Weik's and Herndon's "Story of a Great Life" this let-
ter is published entire under the heading, "A Most Amusing
Courtship." The letter itself Weik calls "a most ludicrous
letter."

Herndon makes no such comments in his suppressed Life
of Lincoln. Should the son of any honorable man or woman
write such a letter about the lady he had tried long and hard
to get for a wife, had proposed to her four times, had never by
her been deceived by word or act, had been told from the first
that she could not marry him, that father and mother would
weep tears of shame and sorrow over such a letter. They would
be unable to see in it anything "amusing," anything "ludicrous."
Nicolay and Hay, who dedicated their ten volumes called
the "Life of Lincoln" to Mr. Lincoln's son Robert, and who, of
course, always held in mind the purpose of pleasing not only the
son, but the Republican party, comment on the letter as follows :
"This letter has been published and severely criticised
as showing a lack of gentlemanly feeling, but those who
take this view forget that Lincoln was writing to an inti-
mate friend, that he mentioned no names, and that twenty-
five years after, when a biographer wanted to publish the
letter, Mr. Lincoln refused consent for the reason, as he
stated, 'there is too much truth in it for print.'"
Nicolay and Hay seek to excuse the writing of this letter
on the score of youth. Lincoln was twenty-eight. If a man is

62 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, ii

ever to possess g-entlemanly feeling-, surely he is old enough at
twenty-eight. But even this excuse is nullified by the fact that
twenty-five years after writing the letter Lincoln exhibited no
regret, no shame, no sense of the gross impropriety of writing
such a letter. He refused to have the letter given to the public,
not because he regretted having written it, but because "there
was too much truth in it" Yet in that letter was as vile a slur
as man can make at an honorable woman. Mark the sentence:

"I knew she was called an 'old maid,' and I felt no doubt of
tlie truth of at least one-half of the appellation."

Is not this intimating a doubt of the chastity of the woman
he had four times asked to be his wife? Had the parties con-
cern- d lived in the South, had the lady been blessed with a big
brother or a fiery father, had either the one or the other chanced
to see thnt letter, Mr. Lincoln would not have lived long enough
to become the first President of the Republican party. The fol-
lowing is a copy of the letter:

"Springfield, April ist. 1838.
"Mrs. O. H. Browning:

"Dear Madam — Without apologizing for being egotistical, I
shall make the history of so much of my life as has elapsed
since I saw you, the subject of this letter. And I now discover
that in order to give you a full and intelligible account of the
things I have done and suffered since I saw you, I shall have to
relate some that happened before. It was in the autumn of 1836
that a married lady of my acquaintance, a great friend of mine,
being about to pay a visit to her father and relations residing in
Kentucky, proposed to me that on her return she would bring a
sister of her's with her if I would agree to become her brother-
in-law with all convenient dispatch. I, of course, accepted the
proposal, for you know I could not have done otherwise had I
really been averse to it, but privately, between you and me, I
was most confoundedly well pleased with the project. I had
seen the said sister some three years ago. and thought her intelli-
gent and agreeable, and saw no good objection to plodding life
through hand in hand with her. Time passed, the lady took her
journey, and in due time returned, sister in company, sure enough.
This astonished me a little, for it appeared that her coming so
readily showed she was a trifle too willing, but on reflection it
occurred to me that she might have been prevailed on by her
married sister to come without anything concerning me having
been mentioned to her, and so I concluded that if no other ob-
jection presented itself I would consent to waive this. All this

Chap, ii Facts and Falsehoods. 63

occurred to me on hearing- of her arrival in the neighborhood,
for be it remembered I had not seen her except about three years
previous to the above mentioned. In a few days we had an inter-
view and although I had seen her before, she did not look as my
imagination had pictured her. i knew she was over size, but
now she appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I knew she was
called an old maid, and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half
of the appellation. But now, when I beheld her, I could not for
my life avoid thinking of my mother, and this not from withered
features, for her skin was too full of fat to permit of its con-
tracting into wrinkles, but from want of teeth and weather-
beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion running
through my head that nothing could have commenced at the
size of infancy and reached her present bulk at less than thirty-
five or forty years ; in short, I was not at all pleased with her.
But what could I do? I had told her sistet I would take her
for better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and con-
science in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had
been induced to act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they
had done, for I was fully convinced that no other man on earth
would have her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent
on holding me to my bargain. Well, thought I, I have said it,
and be the consequences what they may, it shall not be my fault
if I fail to do it. At onCe I determined to consider her my wife,
and this done, all my powers of discovery were put to work in
search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off against
her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which but for her
corpulence was actually true. Exclusive of this, no woman I
have ever seen had a finer face. I also tried to convince myself
that the mind was much more to be valued than the person, and
in this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with
whom I had been acquainted. Shortly after this, without com-
ing to any understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, where
you first saw me. During my stay there I had letters from her
which did not change my opinion either of her intellect or in-
tention, but, on the contrary, confirmed it in both. All this while,
though I was fixed firm as the surge-repelling rock in my reso-
lution, I found I was continually repenting the rashness which
had led me to make it. Through life I have been in no bondage,
either real or imaginary, from the thralldom of which I so much
desired to be free. After my return home I saw nothing in her
to make me change my opinion of her in any respect. I now
spent my time in planning how I might get along through life

64 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, ii

after my contemplated change of circumstances should have
taken place,, and how I might procrastinate the evil for a time,
which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than the Irish-
man does the halter. After all my suffering on this deeply inter-
esting subject, here I am wholly, unexpectedly, completely out of
the scrape, and now I want to know if you can guess how I got
out of it. Clear, in every sense of the term ; no violation of word,
honor or conscience. I don't believe you can guess, so I may as
well tell you at once. As the lawyer says, it was done in the
manner following, to-wit: After I had delayed the matter as
long as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the way, had
brought me around to the last of fall), I concluded I might as
well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so
I mustered up my resolution and made the proposal to her direct,
but, shocking to relate, she said 'No.' At first I thought she did
it through an affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill
became her, under the peculiar circumstances of her case, but
on my renewal of the charge I found she repeated it with greater
firmness than ever. I tried again and again, but with the same
success, or, rather, the same want of success. I finally was forced
to give it up, at which I very unexpectedly found myself morti-
fied almost beyond endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to me,
in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded
by the reflection that I had been too stupid to discover her inten-
tions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them
perfectly, and that she whom I had taught myself to believe no-
body else would have, had actually rejected me, with all my
fancied greatness. And to cap the whole thing, I had then for
the first time begun to suspect that I was really a little in love
with her. But let it all go; I'll try and outlive it. Others have
been made fools of by the girls, but this can never with truth'
be said of me. I most emphatically in this instance made a fool of
myself. I have now come to the conclusion of never again to
think of marrying, and for this reason I can never be satisfied
with any one who would be blockheaded enough to have me.
Your sincere friend, A. Lincoln.'^

If this appears rough treatment cf the lady who refused to
marry Mr. Lincoln, what will be thovi^ht of his treatment of
the lady who consented to marry him? After Miss Owens, Lin-
coln courted Miss Todd, who is described by Herndon and La-
mon as a handsome, well-educated young lady of a fine old Ken-
tucky family. Like Miss Owens, Miss To Id was in Springfield
on a visit to a married sister. The day was set for the marriage,

Chap, ii Facts and Falsehoods. 65

or rather the night of January ist, 1841. The guests were in-
vited and duly arrived ; the feast was spread, the bride was ar-
rayed in all her beauty and finery. They waited the coming of
the bridegroom. But he came not. A strange uneasiness arose,
runners were sent out in search, but they found him not. When
all hope was over the disappointed, chagrined, unhappy bride re-
tired to her chamber to hide her grief and shame. The guests
departed, amazed and astounded. Next day the bride returned
to her Kentucky home. When morning came Lincoln's friends
found him and demanded an explanation of his extraordinary
conduct.

'T found," replied Lincoln, "that I do not love Miss
Todd enough to make her my wife."

When his friends made Lincoln understand how his con-
duct would be viewed he was greatly troubled. "Popularity to
him was the greatest good in life." To lose popularity would
indeed be a great loss to Lincoln. He was an ambitious poli-
tician. Lincoln's friends urged him to leave town until the ex-
citement blew over. He went to Speed's paternal home, near
Louisville, Ky., and there remained three weeks, the guest of
Speed's father. Modern biographers excuse Lincoln on the
ground of insanity. Herndon, in his suppressed Life of Lincoln,
says "Lincoln was not insane, but much depressed." Speed's
brother, who saw Lincoln while at his father's house, says he
was not insane. Joshua Speed, Lincoln's close friend, says "Lin-
coln was not insane, but was depressed, and almost contemplated
suicide." The apotheosizing biographers either make no men-
tion of the occurrence or declare he was insane. Hapgood boldly
says :

"When Lincoln was found next day he was as crazy as a
loon." On whose authority Hapgood bases this assertion does
not appear. Apotheosizing writers care very little for authority.
No writer during Lamon's or Herndon's life dared assail the
veracity of either of these men. Miss Tarbell, who wrote her
so-called Life of Lincoln long after his two true friends, Hern-
don and Lamon, had passed away, attacked Herndon's veracity,
and makes a lame attempt to deny the whole story. At the end
of a year Miss Todd again visited her sister in Springfield, 111.
Mr. Lincoln, wishing to atone, again proposed marriage, and was
again accepted. Herndon says that the little boy of the house,
on seeing Mr. Lincoln dressing for his marriage, asked where he
was going.

"To hell," was Mr. Lincoln's gloomy reply.

66 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap, ii

In his suppressed Life of Lincoln, Herndon says :

"It literally ivas a hell to which Mr. Lincoln went.
Aliss Todd lost all love for Mr. Lincoln that night he inflicted
upon her so grievous a wrong. She married for revenge,
and got it in good weight. To me it has always .seemed
plain that Mr. Lincoln married Miss Todd to save his honor.
He sacrificed his domestic peace ; he chose honor, and with
it years of torture, sacrificial pangs and the loss forever of
a happy home. As to Miss Todd, until that fatal night, Jan-
uary I St., 1841, she may have loved Lincoln, but his action
on that night forfeited her affection. He had crushed her
proud spirit. She felt degraded in the eyes of the world.
Love fled at the approach of revenge. She led her husband
a wild dance. She unchained the bitterness of a disappointed
and outraged nature. Mary Todd had kept back all the un-
attractive traits of her character. Lincoln's married life is a
curious history ; facts long chained down are slowly coming
to the surface. It often happened that Lincoln would get
up in the dead of night, and go out of his own house to es-
cape his wife. He often went to his law office to sleep on
the old horsehair sofa there. Mrs. Lincoln's temper was
something fearful."

Illustrating Mrs. Lincoln's violent temper, in the "True
Story of a Great Life" is the following story : A girl in the em-
ploy of Mrs. Lincoln was discharged. The girl's uncle called
on Mrs. Lincoln to learn the cause of such treatment. Mrs. Lin-
coln met the man at the door and was so infuriated and violent
the man was glad to get safely away. But he went at once to
Lincoln's office to exact from him proper satisfaction. Lincoln
listened to the uncle's story, then sadly said:

"My friend, I regret to hear this, but in all candor I
ask you, can't you endure for a few moments what I have
had as my daily portion for the last fifteen years?"

The uncle was disarmed. Lincoln's look of distress so excited
his sympathy he warmly shook his hand, and from that day be-
came Lincoln's good friend. See True Story of a Great Life,

vol. 3, p. 430-

Nicolay and Hay, of Lincoln's marriage to Miss Todd, say:
"This episode shows the almost abnormal development
of conscience in Mr. Lincoln, who was ready to enter a mar-
riage which he dreaded because he thought he had given the
lady reason to think he had intended marriage. We can but

Chap. 12 Facts and Fai.sehoods. ~^ 67

wonder at the nobleness of the character to which it was

possible."

Holland and other apotheosizing writers make no denial of
the story. They simply tell of Lincoln's marriage in 1842. Hap-
good calls Lincoln's marriage to Miss Todd "a mysterious mar-
riage/' There was no mystery ; the facts are plain enough. But
if Lincoln did not wish to marry Miss Todd, why did he not
break it off in a less painful way?

CHAPTER XII.

Mr. Lincoln's Passion for Indecent Stories. Mr. Holland on This
Habit. Lincoln "the Foulest in Stories of Any Other Man."
Gov. Andrezvs' Disgust. Lincoln Writes Indecent Things.
He Dislikes Ladies' Society.

Mr. Lincoln's passion for indecent stories would be passed
over in silence were it not for the fact that Republican writers
and politicians persist in proclaiming to the youth of this country
that Mr. Lincoln is the man whose character they should emu-
late and revere : that he was the purest and the noblest man that
ever lived ; that he was a "servant and follower of Christ," "a
pure Christian." Only a short while ago a speaker said:

"Abraham Lincoln was the first of all men who have
walked the earth since the Nazarene."

Another speaker recently told his hearers that —
"They should give up all hope of heaven if Lincoln was
excluded." Are these men insincere en- ignorant? If sincere,
they commit a great wrong by indorsing, as they do, a man the
youth of this country should not be taught to revere or emu-
late.

In Charles L. C. Minor's "Real Lincoln," published in 1901.
is this:

"A mistaken estimate of Abraham Lincoln has been
spread far and wide. Even in the South an editorial in a
very respectable religious paper lately said as follows : 'Our
country has more than once been singularly fortunate in the
moral character and admirable personality of its popular
heroes. Washington, Lincoln and Lee have been the type
of characters that it is safe to hold up to the admiration of
their own age and to the imitation of succeeding genera-
tions.' "

68 ^' Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 12

■'' If this Southern editor had known the real character of Lin-
coln he would have put his pen and paper in the fire before giving
such bad advice to Southern boys. In 1866 Mr. Holland wrote
his Life of Lincoln under the full glare of the apotheosis cere-
mony. Although presenting Mr. Lincoln to the public, closely
resembling the effigy the apotheosizers had made, still Mr. Hol-
land did not go so far as to deny all the facts he would have
been glad to conceal. The whole country was full of Mr. Lin-
coln's "indecent yarns," which many persons then living had
heard him retail. Mr. Holland did not dare to deny the facts,
or to remain silent on the subject. He says :

"It is useless for Mr. Lincoln's biographers to ignore
this habit. The whole West, if not the whole country, is full
of these stories, and there is no doubt at all that he indulged
in them. Men who knew Mr. Lincoln throughout all his
professional and political life have said that 'he was the foul-
est in his jests and stories of any man in the country.' "

F. B. Carpenter, the artist who painted Lincoln's portrait, did
not venture to deny the obscene stories, but was vexed at Holland
for mentioning them.

"I regret," wrote the amiable artist, desiring to main-
■ tain the theory of Lincoln's deification, "that Dr. Holland has
' thought it worth while to notice the stories going about of

]Mr. Lincoln's habitual indulgence in telling objectionable
■stories."

Holland attempts to excuse Mr. Lincoln's passion for vul-
gar yarns on the ground tliat "Mr. Lincoln's experience and con-
nection with lawyers necessarily induced familiarity with the
foulest phases 6f human life." Lawyers will be no little aston-
ished to hear that the legal profession "necessarily befouls" the
minds of its practitioners. Coming of a family of lawyers, and
from a long and wide acquaintance with members of the bar, the
present writer denies Mr. Holland's assertion that the "prac-
tice of law and association with lawyers have a tendency to lead
the mind to obscenity." Lawyers will compare favorably with
the medical profession ; indeed, with any of the Icirned profes-
sions, hardly excepting the clerical. Herndon say5 :

"Lincoln could never realize the impropriety ,of telling-
vulgar yarns in the presence of a minister of the gOi'pel."

Will a gentleman tell vulgar yarns in anybody's prejence?

Rhodes, page 471, relates the following:* ' ^

Chap. 12 Facts and Falsehoods. 69

"A leading member of one of the greatest religious
organizations (June 20th, 1864), which had been passing
resolutions and sending deputations to the White House,
and was entrusted with the speech-making part of the busi-
ness, publicly described the demeanor of Mr. Lincoln on
that occasion as follows: 'Lincoln is a buffoon, a gawk;
he is disgracefully unfit for the high oiificc to which he again
aspires. I departed from the East Room with a sickening
sensation of the helplessness of our cause.' "

Lamon says:

"Mr. Lincoln's habit of relating vulgar yarns (not one
of which will bear printing) was restrained by no presence
and no occasion."

General Don Piatt writes of having heard Lincoln relate
stories "not one of which could appear in print."

In Vol. 4, p. 518, of Rhodes' History of the United States,
is this:

"Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, in an interview
with President Lincoln on a matter he had at heart, was put
off by Lincoln telling a smutty story, turning the Govern-
or's subject into ridicule. Governor Andrew was filled
with disgust."

Herndon says :

"Lincoln's highest delight was to get a rowdy crowd in
groceries (dram-shops) or on street corners and retail vul-
gar yarns too coarse to put in print."

On page 63 of Lamon's Life of Lincoln we have this:

"Abe wrote many satires which are only remembered
in fragments, but if we had them in full they were too inde-
cent for publication ; such, at least, is the character of a
piece touching a church trial wherein Brother Harper and
Sister Gordon were parties seeking judgment. It was very
coarse, but it served to raise a laugh in the groceries at the
expense of the church."

Do the Christian parents of this country want their boys
taught to imitate a man who sought to "raise laughter in dram-
shops at the expense of the churches?"

Mr. A. Y. ElHs, friend of Mr. Lincoln, says:

"On electioneering trips Mr. Lincoln told stories
which drew the boys after him. I remember them, but mod-
esty forbids me to repeat them."

yo Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 12

Dennis Hanks, Lincoln's cousin, said:

"Abe had a great passion for vulgar yarns."
On p. 478, Lamon's Life of Lincoln, is this:

"Telling and hearing ridiculous stories was one of Lin-
coln's ruling passions. He would go a long way out of his
road to tell a grave, sedate man a broad story or propound
to him a conundrum not remarkable for delicacy. If he
happened to hear of a man who was known to have some-
thing 'fresh' in this line, he would hunt him up and swap
jokes with him. This was so in Indiana, in New Salem, in
the Black Hawk war, on the circuit, on the stump, every-
where. When court adjourned from village to village, the
taverns, the groceries left behind, were filled with the sorry
echoes of 'Abe's Best.' Men carried home with them select
budgets of his stories, to be related to itdhing ears as 'Old
Abe's Last*

"His humor was not of a delicate quality ; it was chiefly
exercised in telling and hearing stories of the grossest sort.
He was restrained by no presence and no occasion. He
seemed to make boon companions of the coarsest men, of
low, vulgar creatures ; he enjoyed them, extracted from them
whatever service they were capable of, then discarded and
forgot them ; he used them as tools to feed his desires. If
one of them, presuming on the past, followed him to Wash-
ington, Mr. Lincoln would take him to his private office,
lock the door, revel in reminiscences, new stories and old,
an entire evening, and then dismiss him."

I know of no more repulsive characteristics than the above
portrays. I know of nothing more contemptible than for a man
to go out of his way to "find fresh indecency ;" out of his way
to hunt up and "swap indecency" with some other obscene crea-
ture. That a man occupying the highest office in America, a
husband and father, should find his chief delight in hearing and
relating to "itching ears " vulgar stories ; that he should take his
indecent visitors into a private room of the White House, lock
the door and "revel an entire evening in obscene reminiscences
of old and new stories," is something for all America to be
ashamed of. Yet this foul-minded and foul-mouthed man is
held up by Republicans as a model for American boys to revere
find emulate. While writing Lincoln's Life, Herndon inquired

Chap. 12 Facts and Falsehoods. 71

of his cousin, Dennis Hanks, what song-s Lincoln most liked
when he was a young man. Dennis replied :

"Religious songs did not suit him at all. One of his
favorite songs began:

"'Hail Columbia, happy land!

If you ain't drunk I'll be damned.' "

This song, Mr. Hanks modestly said, "should only be
warbled in the fields." Another favorite of Abe's began:

"There was a Romish lady brought up in Popery."

"Other little songs I won't say anything about ; they
would not look well in print," said Mr. Hanks.

"Abe," says Lamon, "was much in demand in hog-kill-
irig time ; he butchered hogs for the neighbors around for
thirty-one cents a day. There was only one man in the
neighborhood whom Abe strongly disliked, and that was
Joshua Crawford. Crawford made him pay for a book he
had lent him which Abe had left where it was rained on and
ruined. As Abe had no money, Crawford made him pull
fodder for three days. This so angered Lincoln he deter-
mined on revenge. He wrote satires on Crawford's nose,
which was deformed, being very big and bumpy at the end.
This caused Crawford much mortification, grief and anguish
of spirit. The Chronicles were written by Lincoln to bring
the churches into ridicule. They were gotten up in Scrip-
tural style. Sister Gordon and Brother Harper, and Craw-
ford's nose, were served up fresh and gross for the amuse-
ment of the grocery boys. A well-to-do man named Grigsby
failed to invite Lincoln to the feast and dance he gave in
honor of the marriage of his two sons. This made Abe very
mad; in revenge he wrote the 'Chronicle of Reuben.' It
was very venomous in spirit. Mrs. Crawford attempted to
repeat the verses in these Chronicles to Mr. Herndon, but
soon stopped, turned red and said she could not; they were
too indecent. These verses were written out by Mrs. Craw-
ford's son-in-law and sent to Herndon, but though much
curtailed by Mrs. Crawford's modesty, it is still impossible
to transcribe them."

In "The Story of a Great Life," p. 534, Mr. Weik makes
quite an original comment on Mr. Lincoln's passion for obscenity.

72 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 12

"Almost any man," says Weik, "that will tell a vulgar
story has, in a degree, a vulgar mind. It was not so with
Mr. Lincoln."

Can a spring which continually pours out muddy water be
itself clear? Can a mind which continually pours out foulness
not itself be foul? Mr. Weik adds to his comment the sage
reflection that Mr. Lincoln had no ability to discern or note the
difference between the vulgar and the refined. The whiskey
drinker knows the difference between whiskey and water, but
he craves whiskey and turns from water as insipid.

Mr. Lincoln's passion for indecent stories never left him ;
it was born with him, it never weakened, never died until it
died with him that fatal night in Ford's Theater. In his boy-
hood it was eager, curious ; in his manhood bold, audacious. It
made itself a factor to further his political desires ; it pandered
to the low, animal instincts of the rowdy class ; it fed itself fat
on their applause. It traveled with him on his electioneering
trips over the state, drawing crowds of the base-minded around
him, whose hilarity at its antics delighted Lincoln's heart.
Wherever he went a trail of foulness was left in his wake ; the
village taverns, the village groceries were full of the foul odors
from his soul. He carried it with him to Washington City ; it
entered the White House, it abode with him there for four years.
It was his pet; he kept it warm in his bosom, he fondled it, he
cuddled it. He carried it with him to Cabinet meetings ; he let
it loose on the Cabinet Alinisters, who roared with laughter at
its caperings (Chase excepted). A few days after the dreadful
battle of Antietam, while all America, North and South, were
mourning over the slaughtered braves, with // in his bosom, and
Lamon by his side, President Lincoln drove out to survey the
fatal field. Not even there in the presence of the sad-hearted
commanding General, there amid so many fresh-made graves,
did it remain quiescent. Bold, shameless, grotesquely gleesome,
out it jumped from its warm nest in Lincoln's bosom, and to
the horror of the Commanding General, in whose ears still rever-
berated the cannon's roar, still sounded the groans and moans
of the wounded, the dying, it called for comic songs, and Lamon,
who never failed to dance to Lincoln's piping, sang the songs.

And this is the man American youths are continually told
they should revere and emulate ! The story of the comic sing-
ing on Antietam's battle-field will be given in the next chapter.

Chap. 13 Facts and Falsehoods. 73

CHAPTER XIII.

Lincoln and Lamon Visit Antietani Battlefield. Lincoln Calls for
a Comic Song. Lamon Sings Picayune Butler. General Mc-
Clellan Shocked. The Perkins Letter. Mr. Lincoln's Reply.

In 1862 a damaging- story appeared in the newspapers which
caused much talk. From that time until Lincoln's death, in
1865, newspapers continued to relate the story, and to challenge
denial, but denial was never made until long after Mr. Lincoln's
death. The Sussex (N. J.) Statesman told the story in 1862,
as follows :

"Lincoln on the Battlefield."

"We see that n]any papers are referring to the fact
that Lincoln ordered a comic song to be sung upon the bat-
tlefield. We have known the facts of the transaction for
some time, but have refrained from speaking about them.
As the newspapers are stating some of the facts, we will
give the whole. Soon after one of the most desperate and
sanguinary battles, Mr. Lincoln visited the Commanding
General, who, with his staff, took him over the field, and
explained to him the plan of the battle, and the particular
places where the battle was most fierce. At one point the
Commanding General said : 'Here on this side of the road
five hundred of our brave fellows were killed, and just on
the other side of the road four hundred and fifty more were
killed, and right on the other side of that wall five hundred
rebels were destroyed. We have buried them where they
fell.' •'! declare,' said the President, 'this is getting gloomy ;
let us drive away.' After driving a few rods the President
said : ']2ick,' speaking to his companion, 'can't you give us
something to cheer us up? Give us a song, a lively one.'
Wliereupon, Jack struck up, as loud as he could bawl, a
comic negro song, which he continued to sing while thev
were riding off from the battle ground, and until they ap-
proached a regiment drawn up, when the Commanding Gen-
eral said : 'Would it not be well for your friend to cease
his song till we pass this regiment? The poor fellows have
lost more than half their number. They are feeling very
badly, and I should be afraid of the effect it would have
on them.' The President asked his friend to stop singing
until they passed the regiment.

74 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 13

"When this story was told to us we said : 'It is incred-
ible, it is impossible, that any man could act so over the
fresh-made graves of the heroic dead.' But the story is
told on such authority we know it to be true. We tell the
story now that the people may have some idea of the man
elected to be President of the United States."

The Statesman's story is rather guarded. It does not give
the name of the battlefield, of the Commanding General, or of
the personal friend with Mr. Lincoln, who sang the comic song.
Other papers made no reservation. Lamon was the friend who
sang the song. General McClellan was the Commanding officer.
Antietam the battlefield. Lamon wrote "The Life of Lincoln"
in 1872, but makes no reference to this story. In Lamon's pa-
pers, published by his daughter, 1895, the story is told thus:

"The story," said Lamon, "was blown about into a re-
volting and deplorable scandal on Mr. Lincoln, who was
painted as the prime mover in a scene of fiendish levity
more atrocious than the world has ever witnessed."

Lamon further states that he and Mr. Lincoln both smarted
under the defamation; that he (Lamon) was anxious to silence
it by denial, but Lincoln would not permit him to make a denial.

Lincoln said to Lamon :

"Let the thing alone. In politics every man must skin
his own skunk. These fellows are welcome to the hide of
this one. Its body has already given out its unsavory odor."

General Piatt refers to the comic song story in his book,
published in 1887, as if it were true, and believed to be true by
the public. In 1895, after all the parties concerned were dead,
Lamon's daughter, Dorothy, published a book she called "La-
mon's Recollections of Lincoln,'^ in which is given the following
account, taken from Mr. Lamon's papers :

"The newspapers," said Lamon, "and the stump speak-
ers went on stuffing the ears of men with reports of w.hat
was known as the 'Antietam Song-Singing' until the fall
of 1864, when I showed to Mr. Lincoln a letter, of which
the following is a copy. It is a fair example of hundreds
of letters received about that time. The Antietam incident
was then being discussed with increased virulence."

The following is Mr. Perkins' letter to Mr. Lamon:

Chap. 13 Facts and Falsehoods. 75

"Philadelphia, September 10.
"Ward H. Lamon:

"Dear Sir — Enclosed is an extract from the New York
World of September 9th, 1864. entitled, 'One of Mr. Lin-
coln's Jokes.'

" 'A few days after the battle of Antietam, while Presi-
dent Lincoln was driving over the field in an ambulance,
accompanied by Marshal Lamon, General McClellan and an-
other officer, heavy details of men were engaged in the
task of burying the dead. The ambulance had just reached
the neighborhood of the old stone bridge, where the dead
were piled highest, when Mr. Lincoln, suddenly slapping
Marshal Lamon on the knee, exclaimed : 'Come, Lamon !
Give us that song about Picayune Butler ; McClellan has
never heard it' 'Not now, if you please,' said McClellan.
with a shudder. 'I would prefer hearing it at some other
place and time.'

"This story had been repeated in the New York World
almost daily for the last three months. Lentil now it would
have been useless to demand the authority. Now we have
Marshal Lamon, General McClellan and another officer.
The story is damaging to Mr. Lincoln, and is believed by
many, as is very evident from the doggerel verses accom-
panying the story, of which the following is a sample:

" 'Abe may crack his jolly jokes

Over bloody fields of battle,
While yet the ebbing life tide smokes ■ ^'' • . !

From men who die like butchered cattle, ^^^ i

And even before the guns grow cold

To pimps and pets Abe cracks his jokes.'

"I wish to ask you, sir, in behalf of others, as well as
myself, whether any such occurrence took place? If it did
not take place, please state who that other ofificer was, if
there was any such in the ambulance in which President
Lincoln was driving over the field of Antietam. while de-
tails of men were engaged in the task of burying the dead.
You will confer a great favor by an immediate reply.
"INTost respectfully, your obedient servant,

"A. J. Perkins."
Lamon states that he submitted the Perkins letter to Mr.
Lincoln, and with it his own draft of a reply to Perkins. Lin-
coln read them both carefully, shook his head, z^nd said:

j6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 13

"No, Lamon ; your reply won't do. Let me try my hand
at it."

"Then," continues Lamon, "Mr. Lincoln sat down and
wrote slowly, and with great deliberation and care, a letter,
to be copied by me and sent to Mr. Perkins as my letter."

If the comic song story was false, why was it not tersely
and shortly denied? Why did the Perkins letter require Mr.
Lincoln to write that denial with "great deliberation, slowly and
carefully?" Mr. Lamon's daughter gives the whole of Mr. Lin-
coln's letter to Mr. Perkins, which he wrote in the name of
Lamon.

"The President," wrote Mr. Lincoln, "has known me
intimately for nearly twenty years, and has often heard me
singing little ditties."

Was this relevant? Was this even akin to denial? The
letter then proceeds to give a minute account of their departure
from Washington City, of meeting General McClellan coming
from his headquarters near the battle ground, of reviewing the
troops at Bolivar Heights, in company with McClellan, in the
afternoon, of going with General Sumner next morning and re-
viewing the troops at Loudon Heights, of reviewing the troops
at Maryland Heights, then at noon starting off to General Mc-
Clellan's headquarters, of getting there only a little time before
night, of next morning starting off to review Antietarn battle-
field. Was this minute detail of Lincoln and Lamon's move-
ments during the two days previous to the comic song episode
in the least necessary ? Was it in the least pertinent to a denial ?
If Mr. Lincoln had an honest denial to make, would he not have
made it in a dozen or a half dozen words ? "The story is false"
(if it were false), wOuld naturally have been the way to deny it.
But even after arriving at Antietam, Lincoln made no direct de-
nial. He continued to whip the devil around the stump.

After getting through with General Burnsides' corps."
wrote President Lincoln for Mr. Lamon, "at the suggestion
of General McClellan, he and the President left their horses
to be led and went into an ambulance or ambulances to go
to General Fitz Porter's corps. I am not certain whether
the President and General McClellan were in the same am-
bulance or in different ones, but myself (Lamon) and some
others were in the same with the President. On the way. in
no part of the battle ground, and on whose suggestion I do

Chap. 13 Facts and Falsehoods. 77

not remember, the President asked me to sing the little sad
song he had often heard me sing. After it was over some
one of the party, I do not think it was the President, asked
me to sing something else. I sang two or three little comic
songs, of which Picayune Bntler was one."

Is this a denial? Can any one believe that General McClel-
lan or the officer with him in the Lincoln ambulance called for
a comic song? Lamon had so long been in the habit of catering
to the President's humor for comic songs, neither he nor Lincoln
could realize how such songs would afifect others, especially how
they would harrow the feelings of army officers just through
the awful ordeal of a bloody battle. Even after this attempted
denial Mr. Lincoln continued his minute descriptions of what
he and Lamon did.

"The battle ground was passed," wrote Lincoln, "the
most noted parts examined."

Then Mr. Lincoln gives a detailed account of what he,
Lamon and General McClellan did the day after the comic song-
singing incident. Was this to confuse the reader's mind, to di-
vert attention from the main point, which was denial of comic
song-singing? The conclusion of Mr. Lincoln's letter is pe-
culiar.

"Neither McClellan nor any one else," he wrote, "made
any objections to the singing. The place was not on the
battlefield, the time was sixteen days after the battle. No
dead bodies were seen, nor even a grave that had not been
rained on since it had been made."

Was it likely that any army officer would run the risk of
offending the President, who had the power of promoting or
pulling down officers? Yet, though slowly and carefully as Mr.
Lincoln had written the letter intended to be sent to Mr. Per-
kins, it was never sent. Why ? Was it because Lincoln, shrewd
lawyer that he was, saw his so-called denial would not hold
water ?

Lamon says Mr. Lincoln, not satisfied with his own attempt
at denial, gave the letter to him to lay away for future use, but
forbade any denial at that time. Was this because the two offi-
cers who were in the ambulance with Lincoln were still living
and could have contradicted misstatements? No denial was
made during the lifetime of any of the parties concerned. No
denial was made until 1895, when Miss Dorothy Lamon pub-

78 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 14

lished the story from her deceased father's papers. After having
related the comic song story, Lamon's next page descants on Mr.
Lincoln's extreme fondness for negro comic songs, "Picayune
Butler" being his prime favorite. "The Blue-Tailed Fly" was
a great favorite. "A comic song," says Mr. Lamon, "sung at a
theater, always restored Mr. Lincoln to cheerful humor." To
sing these songs seems to have been part of Lamon's duty to
the President. Had Lincoln been a King, and had he and La-
mon lived in ancient times, Lamon would have held the position
of the King's Jester.

CHAPTER XIV.

The True and the False. Apotheosidng Writers. Miss Tarbell
Takes the Lead. Why Thomas Lincoln Left Kentucky.
Apotheosizing Twaddle. Mr. Lincoln and Tzi'o Little Girls.

It is curious to compare some of what Lamon called the
"pretended biographies" of Lincoln with the true story told by
men who knew Lincoln and painted him just as he was in life,
faults and all. In the smallest thing the "pretended biographies"
misrepresent and misstate. Instance the following from Miss
Tarbell's "Life of Lincoln:"

"If Mr. Lincoln was not strictly orthodox, he was pro-
foundly religious. He was a regular and reverent attend-
ant at church."

And this:

"Lincoln never for a moment courted personal ambition
before the cause of negro freedom,"

Lincoln's own words convict him of utter indifference to
the cause of negro freedom.

This from Tarbell (p. 220, Vol. i) :

''So great an evil did Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks
Lincoln (Lincoln's parents) hold slavery, to escape it they
left their home in Kentucky and moved to a free state.
Thus their boy Abe's first notion of slavery was that it was
some dreadful thing to flee from, a thing so dreadful that it
was one's duty to go to pain and hardship to escape it."

Holland and other apotheosizing biographers tell about the
same story on this subject. The falsity of this is proved by Hern-

Chap. 14 Facts and Falsehoods.

79

don, Lamon and Mr. Dennis Hanks, Lincoln's" cousin. Lamon
refutes the story thus:

"It has pleased some of Mr. Lincoln's biographers to
represent that Lincoln's father's move from Kentucky was
a flight from the taint of slavery. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. There was not at that time more than fifty
negroes in all Harden County, which then composed a vast
area of territory. It was practically a free community.
There is not the slightest evidence that Lincoln's father ever
disclosed any conscientious scruples concerning slaverv.
Abraham Lincoln's father got into trouble with a man named
Enslow. They fought like savages. Lincoln bit off Ens-
low's nose. This affray and the talk it made was the cause
of Thomas Lincoln's escape from Kentucky."

(See Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 916.)

Lies are hard to kill. Notwithstanding the most positive
evidence on this subject, the pretended biographers continue to
tell falsehoods about Lincoln's hatred of slavery and his great
piety.

Although General Piatt at first opposed the deification of
President Lincoln, and disliked the "pious lies," still as the years
went by and the "pious lies" continued with an ever-increasing
"piety," they got in their work on Piatt's mind, despite his per-
sonal knowledge of how little they comported with the dead
President's character. In 1887 Piatt wrote as follows:

"It is strange now to know that during President Lin-
coln's life, and for years after his death, he was popularly
regarded as a shrewd, cunning sort of man."

There was nothing strange in it. Lincoln was a shrewd,
cunning sort of man, and the people knew it.

During Lincoln's life, and for years after his death, Piatt
well knew that Lincoln was a "shrewd, cunning sort of man."
Every one who well knew Lincoln knew that Seward had judged
correctly when he said Lincoln had a cunning which was genius.
It was admitted by his friends that he was the shrewdest poli-
tician of his age. "But," continues Piatt, "the public mind will
slowly come to dwell entranced on that grand central figure —
Abraham Lincoln."

Entranced f Yes : not with the real Lincoln, but with the
deified man the public is taught to think was the Lincoln of
the 6o's. Piatt himself had drawn Lincoln's pen portrait before
the deified theorv had entranced his faculties.

8o Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 14

"I saw," said Piatt, "a man of coarse, rough fibre, with-
out culture. His views of human nature were low, but good-
natured. This low estimate of humanity blinded him to the
South. He could not believe that men would fight for an
idea. Lincoln considered the Southern movement a game
of political bluff. 'The men of the South,' he said, 'won't
give up the offices. Were it believed that vacant places
could be had at the North Pole, the road there would be
lined with dead Virginians.' "

Had this man been born of the blood and blackness of the
Hottentot race, had he grown up in the jungles of Africa, he
could not have known less of the nature of Virginia's sons. Did
he ever come to see his mistake? Did he ever come to realize
how men will fight for the idea of independence? When Robert
E. Lee refused to accept high rank in the Union Army because
he would not, could not, fight his own people, but was willing
to fight and die in their defense, did Mr. Lincoln realize that at
least one Virginian valued ideas and principles more than office?
In Herndon's suppressed Life of Lincoln we are told that from
early youth Lincoln's whole and sole ambition was to gain office.
Politics was Lincoln's trade, office his aim. Did Lincoln look
into his own soul and measure Virginians thereby?

On p. 237 of Lamon's Life of Lincoln is this :

"Mr. Lincoln was never agitated by any passion more
intense than his wonderful thirst for distinction ; distinction
was the feverish dream of his youth. Thirst for distinction
governed all his conduct up to the day the assassin ended
his life. Mr. Lincoln struggled incessantly for place."

In Weik's Story of a Great Life he says :

"Mr. Lincoln's restless ambition found its gratification
only in the field of politics."

Piatt gives a pen portrait of Mr. Lincoln's face and form:

"Mr. Lincoln," says Piatt, "was the homeliest man I
ever saw. His body seemed one huge skeleton in clothes.
Tall as he was (six feet four inches), his hands and feet
looked out of proportion, so long and clumsy were they.
Every movement was awkward in the extreme. He had a
face which defied the artist's skill to soften or idealize. It
was capable of but few expressions. When in repose his
face was dull and repellant. It brightened like a lit lantern
when animated. I discovered that he was a skeptic."

Chap, 14 Facts and Falsehoods. 81

Being a zealous abolitionist, Piatt sounded Mr. Lincoln on
the question of slavery. Piatt says:

"I soon discovered that Mr. Lincoln could no more feel
sympathy for the wretched slaves than he could for the
horse he worked or the hog he killed." "Descended," con-
tinued Piatt, trying to explain Mr. Lincoln's want of feeling
for negroes, "from the poor whites of the South, he inherited
the contempt, if not the hatred, held by that class for the
negro race. It is the popular belief that Mr. Lincoln was of
so kind a nature his generous impulse often interfered with
his duty. To prove this, attention is called to the fact that
he never permitted a man to be shot for desertion or sleep-
ing at his post. This belief is erroneous. I doubt whether
Mr. Lincoln had at all a kind, forgiving nature. There
was far more policy than kind feeling which made him refuse
to sanction the death penalty for desertion. It pleased Mr.
Lincoln to be the source of mercy as well as the fountain of
honor."

Piatt's study of Lincoln's character led him to believe he
was incapable of feeling pity for the suffering of others. Piatt
also believed that God had created Lincoln callous of feeling to
save him (Lincoln) from the pain of pity on witnessing the sol-
diers' sufiferings. Lincoln told General Schenck that the suffer-
ings he witnessed never interfered with his comfort. "I eat my
rations three times a day," said Lincoln, "and sleep the sleep
of the innocent." And this despite the horrors around him.

In her life of Lincoln, Miss Tarbell describes the sights of
Washington City, which Mr. Lincoln could not avoid looking
upon.

"After battles," says Miss Tarbell, "for days and days
long, straggling trains of mutilated men poured into the city
on flat cars, piled so close together that no attendant could
pass between the wounded men. Occasionally these wretched
men were protected from the cold by blankets, which had
escaped with its owner, or from the sun by boughs put in
their hands, to be held over their faces on reaching Wash-
ington. These suffering men were laid in long rows on the
wharf or platform v.-aiting until the ambulance carried them
to hospitals. When one considers the wounded in the
great Virginia battles he will realize the length and awful-
ness of the streams of bleeding, suffering men which flowed
into Washington City. At Fredericksburg they numbered

82 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 14

9,600, at Chancellorsville 9,762, in the Wilderness 12,070,
at Spottsylvania 13,406. After the battle of Bull Run, .
churches, dwellings and g-overnment buildings were seized
to put the wounded in. The hospitals could not begin to
hold them.

"By the end of 1862 Mr. Lincoln could hardly walk or
drive in his carriage in any direction without passing a hos-
pital full of the maimed, the dying. Even in going to his
summer cottage he could not escape the sight of the
wounded. The hillsides were dotted with tents during the
entire war. Tents were close to the roadside, so as to get
more fresh air. Mr. Lincoln frequently looked from his
carriage window on the very beds of the wounded soldiers."
"The very beds." What does this mean, if not that Miss
Tarbell's pity goes out not to the poor, mutilated, wounded, dy-
ing men in the tents, but to the high functionary who —

"Could hardly walk or drive in his carriage in any
direction without seeing suffering soldiers?"

"When Mr. Lincoln/' continues Miss Tarbell, "visited
these wretched sufferers, he freely shook hands with them,
for which they were profoundly grateful."

"Freely?" And why "profoundly grateful?" If gratitude
was due from one side or the other, surely these maimed and
bleeding men should have received it from the President who
invited, or forced, them into the ranks to fight. They suffered
while obeying his command.

Miss Tarbell puts on record other equally important acts of
Mr. Lincoln. Instance the following:

"On one occasion two little girls, shabbily dressed,
strayed into the White House. While gazing about, scared.
President Lincoln happened to see them, and said: 'Little
girls, are you going to pass me without shaking hands?'
Then he shook each child by the hand. Everybody was
spellbound."

Can any man or woman in America see any good reason
why "everybody" or anybody should be spellbound because an
American President shook two little girls by the hand? Does
Miss Tarbell look on all American Presidents as so high above
common mortals that common mortals are "profoundly grate-
ful" for a shake of their hands, whether "freely" made or other-
wise? Does Miss Tarbell feel this way about every President,
or is the above only the usual apotliensis twaddle Republican
writers indulge in about Mr. Lincoln?

Chap. 14 Facts and Falsehoods. 83

On the wall of one of the splendid art galleries in the pal-
ace of Versailles hangs a large painting representing a street
scene in Paris. The central figure is a portrait of a Bourbon
King. He stands amid a group of little beggar children, one
royal hand on the top of a little beggar girl's head ; the other is
scattering coins among the children. In the background stands
the King's attendants. If anybody was "spellbound" because a
King patted the head of a little beggar girl on the street, no
French historian has recorded the fact.

In the study of Mr. Lincoln's character I find traits which
no biographer has seemed to see. When Lincoln was only one
of the common people, only a plain, poor man, his speeches and
letters indicate a liberty-loving nature. After he became what
his worshippers fondly term a "great ruler," his every act and
some of his writings betray the spirit of autocracy as strong
as any Caesar ever felt. A few instances will illustrate. In 1854,
i6th of October, in a speech delivered in Peoria. Illinois, Lincoln
said: "No man is good enough to govern any other man with-
out his consent." This is good Democratic doctrine. On hear-
ing these words fall from Lincoln's lips in 1854, who would
have thought it possible that within six short years from that
time Lincoln would make himself the absolute master, not of one
man alone, but of millions? In 1859 Lincoln still seemed to
think and feel as a liberty-loving man. In that year a Boston
committee invited Mr. Lincoln to speak at the celebration of ,
Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Unable to accept, Lincoln wrote
to the committee as follows :

"It is no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson
from overthrow in this Nation. Some call these principles
'dashing generalities,' others 'self-evident lies ;' expressions
which tend to the supplanting of the principles of freedom.
All honor to Jefferson, to the man who, in the concrete
pressure of a struggle for independence, had' the courage to
forecast and the capacity to introduce into a merely revo-
lutionary document, an abstract truth applicable to all men
all times, and so embalm it that in all coming days it shall
be a stumbling block to the harbingers of a reappearing ty-
ranny and oppression. Abraham Lincoln."

This has the true ring of freedom. Alas ! Alas ! How
soon did Lincoln lose sight of Jefferson's grand truths? How
soon did he trample them out of sight deep down in the bloody
mire of a hundred battlefields. I beg the reader to hold the

84 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 14

above letter in mind, that he may compare it with one Mr. Lin-
coln wrote four years later (1863), after he had made himself
the absolute master of all the millions in the Northern States,
and was hard at work to subjugate the millions in the South.
Had the one letter been written by Thomas Jefferson himself,
and the other by the Czar of Russia or the Sultan of Turkey, the
spirit, the tone, the words, the meaning of the two could be no
more widely opposed. The one is as Democratic as the other
is despotic. {See letter, second part, in reply to com-
mittee requesting the liberation of Vallandingham.)

In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26th, 1857, Lin-
coln quoted liberally from the Declaration of Independence, and
laid great emphasis on the immortal words:

"Governments derive their just powers from the con-
sent of the governed." "The author of the Declaration
of Independence meant it to be as, thank God I it is now prov-
ing itself to be, a stumbling block to all those who in after
times might seek to turn a free people back to the hateful
paths of despotism. They know the proneness of prosperity
to breed tyrants, and they meant, when such should appear in
this fair land, for them at least to find one hard nut to
crack."

Lincoln never attempted to crack that nut ; he simply ignored
it until he was Commander-in-Chief of over 2,000,000 arnied
men and felt himself the absolute ruler of the unarmed millions
of the North ; then he boldly kicked that nut out of his way, and
turned a free people back to the hateful paths of despotism.
Those who believe in the possibilities of human foresight may
easily fancy Mr. Lincoln at times possessed that occult power.

In 1837, when Lincoln was 28 years old, he delivered a lect-
ure in Springfield which seemed to foreshadow the part he him-
self was destined to play in the awful drama of the 6o's. The
title of this lecture was "The Perpetuation of Our Free Institu-
tions." Lincoln began by talking of the danger that was ap-
proaching the people of this country and the direction whence
it would come.

"At what point," he asked, "shall we expect the ap-
proach of this danger ? Shall we expect some trans- Atlantic
military giant to step across the ocean and crush us at a
blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa,
combined, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by
force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the

Chap. 15 1\\c:ts and Falsehoods. 85

Blue Ridge, In a tliousand years. The danger will not come
from abroad. If destruction be our lot. we ourselves must
be its author and its finisher. As a nation of free men, we
must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Lincoln then expressed the belief that the danger would
come from the demoralization of the American people.

"That," he cried, "will be the time when the usurper
will put down his heel on the neck of the people, and batter
down the fair fabric of free institutions. Manv great and
good men may be found whose ambition aspires no higher
than a seat in Congress, or a Presidential chair, but srcb. Ix--
long not to the family of the Lion, or the tribe of the Eagle.
What! Think you such places would satisfy an Alexander?
a C?esar? or a Napoleon? Never! Towering ambition dis-
dains a beaten path. It seeks regions unexplored. It sees
no grandeur in adding story to story upon the monuments
already erected to the memory of others. It scorns to tread
in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It
thirsts, it burns, for distinction, and, if possible, it will have
it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslav-
ing free men."

When we remember Herndon's and Lamon's testimony that
Lincoln's "thirst for distinction" was the master passion of his
life, that his youth and manhood were spent in the restless and
eager pursuit of office, of power, of place, the above words pos-
sess a strange, if not prophetic, significance. Did Lincoln feel or
fancy himself of the Lion family? Or of the Eagle tribe? Did
his "towering ambition" disdain to walk in the path trodden by
the feet of preceding Presidents? Did he see no distinction in
adding "story on story upon a monument already erected to oth-
ers?" Did he "scorn to walk in the footsteps of any predecessor?"
Was it "burning thirst for distinction above all other American
Presidents" which made Lincoln "rush on carnage," enslave
5.000,000 of his own race, color and blood, and set free 4,000,000
of an alien race, a diflferent color, blood and kin?

CHAPTER XV.

A Brief Account of the Tzvo Policies, President Johnson's and
That of the Republican Leaders.

Soon after Johnson assumed the Presidency he sent General
Grant, December 13, 1865, to make a trip over the Southern

86 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 15

States to observe and report the state of the country, and es-
pecially the temper of the people. Were they disposed to keep
the peace? Were there any signs of rebellion? Would they
quietly return to the peaceful vocations of life? Grant made the
following report to the President:

"My observations lead me to believe that the citizens
of the Southern States are anxious to return to self-govern-
ment within the Union as soon as possible. They are in earn-
est in wishing to do what is required of them by the Gov-
ernment, not humiliating as citizens, and will pursue such
a course in good faith. There is such universal acquiescence
in the authorit}- of the general Government that the mere
presence of a military force, without regard to number, is
sufficient to maintain order. I am sorry to say that the freed-
man's mind (the negro) is not disabused of the idea (which
has come from the agents of the Freedman's Bureau) that
a freedman has a right to live without care or provision for
the future. The effect of the belief in the division of the
land is idleness and the accumulation of negroes in camps,
towns and cities. Vice and disease will tend to the extermi-
nation or great reduction of the colored race. The necessity
of governing any portion of our territories by martial law
is to be deplored. If resorted to it should be limited in its
authority, and should leave all local authorities and civil
tribunals free and unobstructed. If insurrection does come,
the law provides the method of calling out the forces to
suppress it."

These were the reasonably humane opinions Grant report-
ed to President Johnson as a basis of action. These were
Grant's views before the Republican leaders determined to im-
peach, depose, many said hang, Johnson. From this report
Johnson formulated his policy, which was to permit the States of
the South to re-enter the Union as equals and himself generously
to exercise the pardoning power toward the conquered Confed-
erates. The Chicago Times, January 26, 1868, tersely defined
Johnson's policy as follows:

"President Johnson is in favor of thirty-six States in
the Union, instead of twenty-five. He advocates the exten-
sion of Federal rights to the whole country (including the
Southern States.) He prefers civil over militarv author-
ity."

Chap. 15 Facts and Falsehoods. 87

Republican leaders bitterly opposed this humane policy.
In the ^March number of the North American Reviczv, 1870,
Wendell Phillips explains the Republican policy and why it was
not carried out:

"We all see now," said Phillips, "that niag-naniniity
went as far as it safely could when it granted the traitor his
life. I lis land should have been taken from him and divid-
ed among the negroes, forty acres to each family. Before
Andrew Johnson's treachery, every traitor would have been
only too glad to have been let off with his life. Every
rebel State should have been held as a territory under the
direct rule of the Government, without troublesome ques-
tions. In his last years the late Vice-President. Henry
Wilson, confessed to me that our party made a great mis-
take in not carrying out this policy. His only excuse was
that the Republican party did not dare risk any other course
in the face of the Democratic opposition."

In that same magazine, same year and month, James G.
Blaine, of Maine, says that Republicans did not carry out that
I)olicy, because it would have led to the overthrow of their par-
ty. No sense of justice or of mercy to the people of the South
influenced them. While the two policies were struggling for
dominance, many land owners in the South hurried off to Wash-
ington to obtain "pardons" for the crime of having done their
best to defend themselves from an invading host. The elder
brother of the writer of this, an officer in the Confederate army,
was among the number of "pardon" seekers. Johnson received
my brother in a friendly way — the two men before the war had
been members of Congress and good friends. Neither man
made any reference to the awful four years that lay between
their parting and this meeting. My brother simply said: "Mr.
President. I have come to you, an applicant for 'pardon.' " The
last words must have stuck in my brother's throat, knowing as
he did that of right pardons are due from the innocent to the
guilty, not from the guilty to the innocent. But of this noth-
ing was said. Without a moment's hesitation. President John-
son turned to his secretary and said: "Make out a pardon for

Mr. ." and the conversation was resumed, as if no gulf of

blood lay between them. With the fewest exceptions, Johnson
granted every request of that nature. These pardons greatly
angered Republican leaders. They had set their very souls on
confiscating the land of the South, dividing it and giving

88 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 15

forty acres to every family of negroes. A pardon was supposed
to save its possessor's land from confiscation. The first at-
tempt to impeach Johnson was based on the charge of making
the "White House a den for pardon brokerage."

With one of these little pardon papers in his pocket, though
his fields were laid waste, his peach-trees cut down, his cattle
killed, his cotton gins, barns, stables, dwelling houses, all heaps of
ashes, over which stood the chimneys "lone sentinels over the
ruin ;" despite all this devastation, the poor Confederate sol-
dier returned to his despoiled home with a feeling of satisfaction
in the thought that at least the ground under his feet would be
a resting spot for wife and little ones to stand on. and work in,
and look up from to the blue heavens above, and they thanked
God for that much saved from the awful deluge of blood and
the awful waves of fiame that had swept over their country.
My brother described the striking change he had observed in Mr.
Johnson, the difference in the man since last they parted, the
one to enter the camp of his people's deadliest foes, and the
other to take up arms in defense of home, country, life, liberty ;
all that men hold dear. Then Mr. Johnson was a strofig, vigor-
ous man, fronting the world and fate, hopefully expecting high
success in life. He was now in the highest office in the land, but
his aspect, his eyes, showed no pleasure in that success. A deep
depression seemed to weigh upon him ; hope, happiness seemed
to have fled. The whole man seemed to be weary, care-worn j
yet in spite of all that might be seen the man's grim resolution
to hold his own. to maintain at the risk of his life the policy he
had determined to pursue. Though Johnson was on the conquer-
or's side and my brother on the conquered, the latter was more
to be envied. ] !e felt ihat satisfaction which comes from h.iv-
ing perfonv.eu a duty to the best of his ability. His snnl was
tortured by no remorse. He yielded to the inevitable without
a murmur, realizing, as ali the men of the South did. that it is
no new thing in the sad history of humanity for the wrong to
triumph over the right. The writer of this believes that An-
drcA Johnson did not jom handr with the Republican pa'tv f;)r
any purpose of despotic rule. He abandoned his people be-
cause he was deceived into the belief that Republicans were
fighting to restore the ITnion of our fathers. Though a man of
strong native abilities. Johnson's faculties and information were
within limited boundaries. He knew but little of the Southern
people beyond his own East Tennessee. In his own State. John-
son's political enemies had accused him of anarchistic tenden-

Chap. 15 Facts and Falsehoods. 89

r

cift--. of intense hatred of the wealthy class. One orator had
lioliily. from the stump, said "Andrew Johnson so hates rich
men, he curses God in his heart because He had not made him
ci snake, that he mi^ht crawl in the grass and bite the heels of
rich mens' children." One can imagine the horror that must
have overwhelmed Johnson when he discovered that the party
to serve which he had abandoned his own people and State, was
monarchistic to its heart core, and had no intention of restoring
the Union of our fathers ; instead was determined to kill it, and
erect on its ruins an Imperial Government. And to aid these
men he had played traitor to his own State, to his own people!
Who does not believe when Johnson came to know the truth, re-
morse, like a venomous serpent, lifted its head in his breast and
fastened its fangs in his heart and gnawed and gnawed night and
day. He had forever forfeited the affections of his own people,
and now the men of the party he had served during the war
hated him as fiercely as they hated the conquered "Rebel" lying
with iron fetters on his feet in the dungeon cell of Fort Monroe.
Though every day of his life a thousand curses were hurled on
the name of that "Rebel" in Fortress INIonroe. though iron chains
and ball abraded and tortvtred him, though he was on the con-
quered side and Johnson among the conquerors, there is reason
to believe that patient prisoner was a less miserable man than
the man in the White House. The former felt no pangs of re-
morse ; he well knew the more he was cursed and reviled, the
tenderer and stronger would be the love of his own people. He
was threatened with the death due to felons and assassins, but
he knew no accusation of his enemies would abate one jot the
reverence, the esteem his own people gave him. ^^'hat recom-
pense had Johnson? Where could he look for affection, for»
sympathy? Not one particle of pride or pleasure did Johnson
derive from the high qffice he was in. The same Nemesis which
had struck down his predecessor as he was about to take his sea;t
for another four years on the throne of power, had upon John-
son her sleepless eyes, and, as he set his foot on the first step of
Power's throne, that Nemesis touched it with her fatal finger,
and lo! it became like unto red hot iron, scorching, shriveling,
tormenting his very soul day and night during the whole period
of his stormy term.

The portrayals of AFr. I^incoln's personal traits contained in
preceding pages were made by his contemporaries, who knew him
well ; some of whom loved him well, all of whom now demand
for him the highest honors, the deepest reverence mortal can re-

90 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 15

ceive. The question to be considered is, do the quaHties of Mr.
Lincoln, attested by men of his own party, indicate that greatness
of soul, purity of heart, and unselfish devotion to principles which
merit the esteem and reverence the Republican party now de-
mands shall be awarded to him? Or do they betray a man of
coarse nature, a self-seeking politician, who craved high office,
more to satisfy his own burning desire for distinction than to
use power for the betterment of his fellow mortals ? If the first
query is answered in the negative, the next question will be, on
what rests the claim made for Mr. Lincoln, of greatness, grandeur,
goodness? Does this claim rest on the solid rock of beneficent
acts done in the days of his power, or on a foundation of sand,
which the waters of Time will surely undermine and wash away?
The deeds done by Mr. Lincoln in the days of his great power
will bear witness in posterity's court.

PART II

CHAPTER XVI.

A)itagO)ustic Principles. The Great American Monarchist. Fed-
eralists Fear and Hate Democracy. War on the South Began
1796. The Olive Branch. The Pelham Papers. New Eng-
land Begins JVork for Disunion and Secession in 1796.

The underlying cause of every conflict between man and
man, tribe and tribe, country and country, has been on the one
side a craving" for power, on the other side an effort to escape
that power. The nascent spirit of one is Monarchy, of the other
Democracy. These two principles are inherently and eternally
antagonistic, and underHe nearly, if not every, war fought on
earth. Stratas of superficial causes usually overlay and cover
up the real causes of war. as they did in the war on the South.

The seven years' war which severed the seceded Colonies
from British rule was an open, undisguised fight between Mon-
archy and Democracy. The four years' war between the South-
ern and "Northern States was a fight between the same old ene-
mies. Monarchy and Democracy, though the astute Republican
party, while heart and soul Imperialistic, concealed and cov-
ered up that principle under loud declarations of Freedom and
blatant professions of humanitarianism. Under these h3'pocriti-
cal cloaks, the Monarchic principles had full swing for four
years, and committed every species of crime and outrage pecul-
iar to enraged ^lonarchists. When the soldiers of Monarchy
in 1783 took ships and sailed Eastward to their kingly country,
the soldiers of Democracy fondly hoped they had driven their
ancient enemy forever from this New Continent. The snake was
scotched, but not killed. Nor was it banished. It remained

92 Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap. i6

here in our niidst with veiled features and softened voice, bid-
ing its chance to up and regain its former power.

Alexander Hamilton was the head and front of American
Monarchists. He wanted to make this Government a pure Mon-
archy. Hamilton advocated a "strong centralized Government,"
of imperial policy.

Gouverneur Morris, a contemporary and friend of Hamilton.
said :

"Hamilton hated Republican Government, and never
failed on every occasion to advocate the excellence of and
avow his attachment to a Monarchic form of Government."

From the formation of the Union, the Federalists of New
England hated and feared Democratic principles. Their great
leader, Hamilton, made no secret of this feeling. In his speech
at a New York banquet Hamilton, in high opposition- to Jef-
ferson's Democracy, cried out:

"The People ! Gentlemen, I tell you the people are a
great Beast !"

In 1796 Gov. Walcott, of Connecticut, said:

"I sincerely declare that I wish the Northern States
would separate from the Southern the moment that event
(the election of Jefiferson) shall take place."
Congressman Plumer, a Federalist and an ardent Secession
ist, in 1804 declared that —

"All dissatisfied with the measures of the Government look-
ed to a separation of the States as a remedy for grievances."

As early as 1796 men of Massachusetts began to talk of
New England seceding from the Union. It was declared that
if Jay's negotiation closing the Mississippi for twenty years
could not be adopted, it was high time for the New England
States to secede from the Union and form a Confederation by
themselves. The Monarchic principles did not thrive under Ham-
ilton's lead. Hamilton was too plain spoken. The Republican
party became more astute. In 1861, while making loud profes-
sions of desiring the largest freedom for the people, that party
was making ready to rob them of every liberty they possessed.
"At the formation of this Union," says E. P. Powell, "Hamilton
laid before the Constitutional Convention of 1787 eleven propo-
sitions, which he wished to make the basis of the Union, but they
were so Monarchistic in tone they received no support what-
ever."

Chap, i6 Facts and Falsehoods. 93

The Republican war on the South stood soHdly on Monarchic
principles. The principles of 1776 were set aside in the 60s, but
not for years after the South was conquered did Republicans
openly admit they were inspired by the spirit of Monarchy. Dur-
ing McKinley's last canipaii^n. Hamilton was loudly lauded and
Jefferson decried as a visionary, a French anarchist. Hamilton
Clubs w^ere organized and Republican novelists set to writing ro-
rrsances with Hamilton as the hero. During Garfield's campaign,
a Republican paper, the Lemars, Iowa, Sentinel, said:

"Garfield's rule will be the transitory period between
State Sovereignty and National Sovereignty. The United
States Senate will give way to a National Senate. State Con-
stitutions and the United States Senate are relics of State
Sovereigntv and implements of treason. Garfield's Pres-
idency will be the Regency of Stahvartism ; after that — Rex."
Fate used the hand of an insane "Stalwart" to impede, if
not estop, the Monarchic plans of that time. The New York Sun,
July 3rd, 1881, quoted President Garfield as saying:

"The influence of Jefferson's Democratic principles is
rapidly waning, while the principles of Hamilton are rap-
idly increasing. Power has been gravitating toward the Cen-
tral Government."

Power did not gravitate, it was wrenched at one jerk to the
Central Government by Lincoln's hand, as will be seen later on.
Not until after Hamilton and Jefferson had passed away did the
followers of Jefferson drop the name "Republican" which they
had borne during his life, and assume the name "Democrat."
Democracy — the rule of the people — is more expressive of Jeffer-
son's doctrines. Not until 1854 did the men of the Federal and
Whig persuasion unite and organize a party and take the name
"Republican." The Republican party of the 60s was the legiti-
mate offspring of the old New England Federalists, and inher-
ited all its progenitor's faiths, hopes, hates and purposes, viz :
Passion for power, fear and hate of Democracy, hate of the
Union, belief in States' Rights, in States' Sovereignty, in Seces-
sion, and the strong persistent determination to break the Union
asunder and form of the Northeast section a Northeastern Con-
federacv. All these ideas belonged to the old Federalists of New
England, and were handed down to the Republican party in

1854.

Wendell Phillips. New England's tongue of fire, speaking of
the inherent purposes of his part>', said:

94

Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i6

"The Republican party is in no sense a national party.
It is a party of the Xorth, organized against the South."
The Republican party zi'as organized against the South, or-
ganized to fight the South in every possible way ; to fight as its
progenitors, the Federalists, had fought from 1796 to 1854, with
calumnies, vituperations, false charges, every word and phrase
hate could use, until the time came to use guns, bayonets, bullets,
cannon balls and shells ; and faithfully did that party carry out
the ignoble and cruel purpose of its organization. The war on
the South was begun by the Federalists of New England in 1796.
In 18 14 a work of some four hundred and fifty pages, called
"The Olive Branch." was published in Boston, which throws elec-
tric light on certain almost forgotten events in New England's
history. "The Olive Branch" contains extracts from a series of
remarkable productions called the "Pelham Papers," which ap-
peared in the Connecticut Courant in the year 1796. The Coiir-
ant was published by Hudson and Goodwin, men of Revolutionary
standing. The Pelham Papers were said to have been the joint
production of men of the first talent and influence in the State.
Commenting on these papers of 1796, the "Olive Branch" of
181 4 says:

"A Northeastern Confederacy has been the object for a
number of years. They (the politicians of New England)
have repeatedly advocated in public print, separation of the
States. The project of separation was formed shortly after
the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The promulga-
tion of the project first appeared in the year 1796, in these
Pelham Papers. At that time there was none of that cata-
logue of grievances which since that period, have been fab-
ricated to justify the recent attempt to dissolve the Union."

This refers to the efforts made in 1804 and 1814 to get the
New England States to secede from the Union, so they might
be separated from the Democratic Southern and Western States.
The "Olive Branch" continues :

"At that time there was no "\''irginia Dvnastv," no
"Democratic Madness," nO "war with Great Britain." The
affairs of the country seemed to be precisely according to
New England's fondest wishes. Yet at that favorable time
(1796) New England was dissatisfied with the Union and
begun to plot to get out of it. The common people, however,
were not then ready to break up the Union. The common
people at that time had no dislike of the Southern States.

Chap. i6 1'\\(Ts and Falsehoods. 95

Then New England writers, preachers and poHticians de-
hberately begun the wicked work of poisoning their minds
against the Southern States. To sow hostiHty, discord and
jealousy between the different sections of the Union was the
first step New England took to accomplish her favorite object,
a separation of the States. Without this efficient instrument.
all New England's efforts would have been utterly imavail-
ing. Had the honest yeomanry of the Eastern States con-
tinued to respect and regard their Southern fellow-citizens
as friends and brothers, having one common interest in the
promotion of the general welfare, it would be impossible to
have made them' instruments in the unholy work of destroy-
ing the noble, the. splendid Union."

But for the unholy work of having taught the common peo-
ple of New England to hate the people of the South, the cruel
war of the 60s would never have been fought.

"For eighteen years," continues the "Olive Branch" (the
eighteen years from 1796 to 1814), "the most unceasing en-
deavors have been used to poison the minds of the people of
the Eastern States toward, and to alienate them from, their
fellow-citizens of the Southern States. The people of the
South have been portrayed as "demons incarnate," as des-
titute of all the "good qualities which dignify and adorn hu-
man nature." Nothing can exceed the virulence of the pict-
ures drawn of the South's people, their descriptions of whom
would more have suited the ferocious inhabitants of New
Zealand than a polished, civilized people."

The following extracts are from the Pelham Papers, publish-
ed in the Hartford Coiirant, 1796:

EXTRACT NO. i.

"The question must soon be decided whether we shall
continue as one Nation. Many advantages were supposed
to be secured and many evils avoided by a Union of States,
but at that time those advantages and evils were magni-
fied to far greater size than either would be if the question
at this moment was to be settled. The Northern States
can subsist as a Nation, a Republic, without any connection
with the Southern. If the Southern people were possessed
with the same political ideas, our Union would be more
dose than in separation."

c)6 Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap. t6

EXTRACT NO. 2.

"It is a serious question whether we shall part with
the States South of the Potomac. No man north of that
river, ivhose heart is not thoroughly Democratic, can hesi-
tate what decision to make. In a future paper I shall con-
sider some of the great events which will lead to the sep-
aration of the United States. I will endeavor to prove
the impossibility of a Union, lasting for any long period, in
the future, both from the moral and political habits of the
Southern States. I will carefully examine and see whether
we have not already approached the era when the Union
of States must be divided."'

All through these extracts the reader will see it is the prin-
ciple of Democracy which New England men wished to escape.

The "Olive Branch" of 1814 comments on the Pelham Pa-
pers as follows :

"It is impossible for a man of intelligence to read the
Pelham Papers without feeling a decided conviction that
the writers, and their friends, were determined to use all
their endeavors to dissolve the Union, in order to promote
their sectional views. These papers offer a complete clue
to all the sectional proceedings that have occurred since
that period."

From Carpenter's Logic of History, published in 1864, from
the "Olive Branch," published in 1814, and from the Pelham
Papers, published in 1796, we learn:

1st. That the Federal leaders of New England, in 1796,
advocated disunion, and were eager to get New England to se-
cede from the Union, and to form a Northeastern Confederacy.

2nd. On finding that the common people of New England
did not favor secession, did not want disunion, did not dislike
tlic Southern States, and were proud of the Union, the Federal
leaders resorted to measures to convert the masses to their views
on secession and disunion.

3rd. These measures were of the meanest, the most con-
temptible character; were a direct and 1 ase violation of the Ninth
Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." Poli-
ticians, newspapers, and preachers of New England engaged in
the evil work of bearing false witness against the people of the
Southern States, whom they painted as '"savages." as "barbari-
ans," as "demons incarnate," as unfit to live in the "same Union
witli the virtuous people of New England."

Chap. i6 Facts and Falsehoods.

97

The following- extracts from the "Olive Branch" throw light
on this subject,:

"The increasing- etTort to excite the public mind to that
feverish state of discord, jealousy, and exasperation, which
was necessary to prepare it for the consummation of their
desire (the secession of the Eastern States), the unhol\'
spirit which inspired the writers of these dissolution senti-
ments has been from that hour (1796 to the present
(1814) incessantly employed to excite hostility between the
different sections of the Union. To such horrible length
has this spirit been carried that many paragraphs have ap-
peared in the Boston papers intended to excite the negroes
of the South to rise and massacre the whites. This is a spe-
cies of baseness of which the world has produced few exam-
ples."

The baseness was indeed extraordinary in face of the fact
that these efforts to instigate negroes to rise and massacre the
whites of the South were made while the people of New Eng-
land w^ere still enriching themselves by carrying on the slave
traffic. The third extract, taken from the Pelham Papers of 1796,
is astonishing.

EXTRACT NO. 3.

"If the negroes were good for food," said a Pelham
Paper, "the probability is that the power of destroying their
lives would be enjoyed by their Southern owners as fully as it
is over the lives of their cattle. Their laws do not prohibit
their killing their slaves because those slaves are human be-
ings, or because it is a moral evil to destroy them. Negroes
are looked on only as brutes ; they are fed or kept hungry,
clothed or kept naked, beaten and turned out to the fury of
the elements, with as little remorse as if thev were beasts of
the field."

The "Olive Branch" indignantly comments on these slander-
ous lies on the Southern people as follows :

"Never were mor^ infamous and false charges made on
a people. Never more disgraceful to their authors. The
turpitude of the writers 'is enhanced by the fact that at the
period these charges were made, negro slavery existed in
the New England and other Eastern States, and at that mo-

9^ Facts ax\d Falsehoods. Chap. i6

ment, and for long afterward. New England was actively
engaged in the slave traffic."

The "Olive Branch" continues thus:

"Some progress was made (toward teaching the com-
mon people of New England to hate the South), but the yeo-
manry of the Eastern States did not feel disposed to quarrel
with the South for their supposed want of piety and moral-
ity. I do not assert that these contemptible charges were
laid down in regular form as a thesis to argue upon, but I
do aver that they form the basis of three-fourths of all the
essays, paragraphs, and squibs that have appeared in the Bos-
ton papers against the Administration for many years. 'The
Road to Ruin,' ascribed to John Lowell, is remarkable for
its virulence, its acrimony, its intemperance, and the talent
of the writer. But if you extract from his essays the as-
sumption of these positions, all the rest is mere caput mor~
tiiiim. The charges against the South are many, and in
endless succession. These charges, however absurd, how-
ever extravagant they appear in their nake.d form, have, bv
dint of incessant repetition, made such an impression on the
minds of a large portion of the people of the Northeastern
States that they are thoroughly convinced of their truth.
The Rev. Jebadiah Morse, in his' geography, attempted to
perpetuate these vile prejudices. Almost every page that
represent his own section of the Union is highly encomi-
umistic. Everything is covered with flattering tints. When
he passes the Susquehanna, what a hideous reverse ! Everv-
thing there is frightful caricature. Society is at a low ebb,
the somber tints are used in order to elevate by contrast
his own section , his Elysium, the New England States. He
dipped his pen in gall when he portrayed the manners, hab-
its and religion of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas,. Geor-
gia, or the Western country." — (Logic of History.)

The children of New England who studied the old Morse
geography, when grown, were ready to accept and credit the
slander on the South conveyed by maps issued in New England
in 1856, half white, half black ; the white half intended to repre-
sent enlightened New England, the black half the barbarous States
of the South.

From S. D. Carpenter's Logic of History, published 1864,
I get the following :

Chap. i6 Facts and Falsehoods. 99

"The Northeastern States early sought to create prej-
udice and disunion sentiment, not on account of anv exist-
ing fact, but to array section against section, to stimulate
hate and discord for the purpose of accelerating their darl-
ing object, the dissolution of the Union and the formation
of a Northeastern Confederacy. Press, politicians and
preachers were continually harping on causes which made
disunion desirable. The motives which actuated New Eng-
land disunionists was the desire to have what Hamilton
called a strong government, understood to mean an autoc-
racy similar to that of England, a large standing army, a
heavy public debt, owned by the favored few, to whom the
common masses should pay tribute, under the guise of inter-
est. The main public offices were to be held by the rich
and noble for long periods, or for life. It was argued that
a national debt would be a national blessing, and prohibi-
tive tariff, under the guise of protection, be a blessing. These
were the motives which led the early Federalists to want dis-
union."

The reader's attention is particularly called to the fact that
during all the years which the Federalists of New England were
teaching the gospel of hate toward the people of the South, there
was no anti-slavery sentiment mixed with that hate. On the
contrary, the hate begun while New England was enriching
herself by the slave traffic, and while slaves were still held in
New England. Not until some years after the end of the second
war with Great Britain did New England mingle and mix anti-
slavery sentiment with her animosity toward the people of the
South. When the Democrat, Jefferson, succeeded the Federalist,
Adams, and the Federalists of New England, as they put it, "saw
power slipping from their grasp," their hope to effect disunion
rose high. They set to work with great energy.

I charge that the gospel of hate inaugurated by New England
Federalists in 1796 was the beginning of the war on the South.
I charge that hate of Democracy was at the very bottom of that
war ; T charge that the South was hated because she was solidly
Democratic. The Republican party, which, as Philips said,
was organized against the South, had inherited all the Federalists
hate of Democracy, hate of the Union, hate of the South, and
with great zeal and eloquence, from the hour of its organization
in 1854, had preached the gospel of those three hates. Calumnies
on the South were poured out in streams until all new England

iCMD Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 17

became infected as with a blood poison. The virulence of this
hate never abated, never ceased, and finally culminated in that aw-
ful deluge of blood which overwhelmed the Southland in the 60s.
Wars do not, like mushrooms, spring- up in a single night. Nor do
they, like rank weeds, grow strong and full statured in a day or
a week. They have their roots deep in the years of the past. The
roots of the war on the South began to vitalize in the year 1796;
those roots yet lie fathoms deep under New England soil ; they yet
live.

CHAPTER XVII.

Republicans Cover up the Real Cause of the War. Xeic England
Secessionists. Early and Universal Belief in the Right of
Secession.

In J. C. Ridpath's history of the war between the States, he
undertakes to give the cause which led to war. He says:

"The first and most general cause of the war was the
different construction put upon the national Constitution
by the people of the North and the South. This diflference
of opinion has always existed. The North held that the
Union is indestructible under the Constitution ; that the high-
est allegiance of citizens is due to the Union, not to their
own State ; that all attempts at disunion are treasonable.
The South held that the Constitution is a compact between
sovereign States, and that a State or States can yvithdraw
from the compact they themselves made."

Although Mr. Ridpath has five letters, A. M., L. L. D., ap-
pended to his name to indicate his high standing in the world of
letters, the most ignorant ploughman of the country could have
made no greater mistake. At no period in the history of Amer-
ica before the war did any such distinct difiference of opinion
on this subject divide the people of the North from the people
of the South. On the contrary, the student of New England's his-
tory knows that from the very formation of the Union, New
England's foremost politicians were dissatisfied with it and begun
to plan and plot to bring about disunion. Up to the very be-
ginning of the war on the South, the Republican party advocated
the principle of State sovereignty and the right of secession.
The people of New England were the first to hate the ITnion, the
first to desire secession, the first to strive to split the Union into
two parts and to form of one part a Northeastern Confederacy

Chap. 17 Facts and Falsehoods. ioi

composed of Northeastern States. The benefit that would re-
sult to New England from secession was openly discussed, as we
have shown, as early as 1796. Colonel Timothy Pickering, an
officer of the Revolutionary War, afterwards Postmaster-Gen-
eral and Secretary of War and Secretary of State in Washing-
ton's Cabinet, and after that a Senator for many years from
Massachusetts, was a Federalist whd believed strongly in the right
of secession and in the advantages that would accrue to New
England if she would separate herself from the Union, and there-
by from legal contact with Democracy. In one of his letters
Pickering talks of the "corrupt and corrupting influence of
Southern Democracy," and adds :

"But I will not despair : I will rather anticipate a new
Confederacy, exempt from Democracy's influence. The
principles of our Revolution point to the remedy — a separa-
tion ; that this can be accomplished without spilling one
drop of blood, I have little doubt."

Governor Walcott. of Connecticut, on this subject, said :

"I sincerely declare that I wish the Northern States
would separate from the Union the moment that event (the
election of Jefferson) shall take place."

In 1794 Fisher Ames said:

"The spirit of insurrection has tainted a vast extent of
country besides Pennsylvania."

This referred to the spirit of disunion spreading in New
England. The desire for disunion came from fear and hate of
Democracy. It was declared in Massachusetts that if "Jay's ne-
gotiations closing up the Mississippi for twenty years could not be
adopted it was high time for the New England States to secede
from the Union."

Every few years something occurred which made New
England declare it was high time for her to get out of the
Union. When Louisiana Territory was purchased, and again
when Louisiana was made a State, New England declared it was
time for her to quit the Union. During the whole two years
this country was waging its second war with Great Britain, New
England preachers, newspapers, and politicians were anxious
for secession, declaring it was high time New England was out
of the L^nion, anxious for New England to make a separate
treaty of peace with old England. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,
in his life of Webster, says :

I02 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 17

"It is safe to say there was no man in this country, from
Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clin-
ton and George Mason on the other, who regarded our sys-
tem of Government, when first adopted, as anything but an
experiment entered upon by the States, and from which
each and every State had the right to peaceably withdraw,
a right which was very likely to be exercised."

A convention in Ohio in 1859 declared the Constitution was
a compact to which each State acceded as a State, and as an in-
tegral part, and that each State had the right to judge for it-
self of infractions and of the mode and measure of redress, and
to this declaration Joshua Giddings, Wade, Chase and Den-
nison assented.

Later on extracts from speeches made by the foremost men
in the Republican ])arty advocating secession, such men as Lin-
coln, Wade of Ohio, Philips of Massachusetts, will be given.
First will be given extracts from a work by E. P. Powell, of New
York, called "Nullification and Secession," which throw light
on New England's effort to secede from the Union in 1803 and
1804. Powell says :

"Of the Federal leaders in 1803, there remained in Wash-
ington, among others, Tracy, Griswald, Plumer and Picker-
ing. These beheld with dismay and horror the dissolution
of their party and their own loss of power. They foimd
themselves out of the offices of the Nation, and Republicans
(Democrats) pursuing them into their own States, depriv-
ing them of emoluments and honor. Angry, affrighted at
their situations, they cried out : 'The South has clearly in-
vaded our rights. Thomas Jefferson is President.' "

'0:»'

Jeffersonian principles were the object of their fear and hate.
Governor Walcott, years before, ha ddeclared that if Jefiferson
was elected to the Presidency he would want New England to
leave the Union.

"The people," says Powell, "en masse were follo\vers of
Jefiferson. Nothing was left of the Federal party in 1800-
3-4 but a gang of hopeless, disappointed leaders. These
men had been recreant to their trust. The history of the
Federal party has been one of high taxation, high salaries,
usurpation of power and despotic legislation. Intrigue, cor-
ruption, tyranny, had been the triumvirate of its short
rule under Adams. It rioted to its own destruction."

Chap. 17 Facts and Falsehoods. 103

Will not every word of the above apply to the rule of the
Republican party? Every word except those in the last line,
"It rioted to its own destruction." Not yet has the Republican
party rioted to its destruction. It still has its strong grip on
the Government machinery, and still maintains itself in power
and place, but the end of its rule is bound to come. It has made
of this Government an imperial power. It has divided the peo-
ple of America into two classes ; on one side the ofifice-holders
are our rulers ; millionaires are the nobility, which support the
throne of power on which our rulers sit. On the other side are
the laborers who toil and sweat to earn the wealth our rulers and
nobility revel in.

^Vleanwhile, monarchs of the Old World grin with delight
over Democracy's downfall, and reach their hands across the
ocean, jovially saying to our rulers, "Hail, brothers!"

Not only is the history of the Republican party one of high tax-
ation, high salaries, usurpation of power, despotic legislation, but
it is the history of more bloodshed, more misery, more anguish
of soul than any other history of the same number of years in the
Nineteenth Century. Every pen that writes that history is dipped
in the blood of men slaughtered in the most unnecessary, re-
morseless, cruel war ever waged between two English-speaking
peoples.

Finding themselves out of power and place, the Federals of
1804 set themselves actively to work on their old schemes to sever
the Union in twain, for the purpose of forming a Northeastern
Confederacy.

Powell says :

"These Federalists undertook to pull down what Wash-
ington and Jefferson had builded, that they might rule in 2.
corner of its ruins !"

The man who fancies that the secession of New England
or of any State from the Union would leave it in ruins is not only
ignorant of the logic of history, but is a foolish believer in the
divine right of governments as against the inherent rights of
the people. AVhether Air. Powell ranks himself a Democrat or
an Imperialist, I know not, but I do know that when any man
talks of this great American people being ruined by the with-
drawal of one or of a dozen States, he talks from the imperial-
istic standpoint, the kingly standpoint, which made George the
Stupid in 1776 fancy his empire would be ruined if the thirteen
jewels from his crown were not restored. Thinkers of this sort
entirely lose sight of the fact that the "people,'' the great body

I04 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 17

of the people, is the country, not the mere machinery of the Gov-
ernment and the few men who run that machinery. The Roman
Empire broke asunder, but were the people of Europe any the
worse ?

Had the New England secessionists succeeded in 1796, or
in 1804, or in 1814, to get New England out of the Union, and
had they formed of her States a Northeastern Confederacy, in
all human probability no gulf would have been dug between the
Southern and Northern States, no gulf filled with the blood and
bones of slaughtered men. No Democratic President would
have resorted to bloody coercion.

President Aladison, in 181 4, was not ignorant of the secession
work going on in New England during the time this country was
in the throes of war with a powerful foe, but Madison took no
step to punish or estop New England's secession. As a true
Democrat, he knew if the people of New England chose to se-
cede they had the right. Secession failed in 1796, because, as the
secessionists themselves put it, "the common people did not
feel power slipping from their grasp, as the leaders did."

Mr. Powell gives extracts, showing how the politicians and
newspapers of New England worked for the secession. of New
England in 1803 and 1804. From "Nullification and Secession "
we take the following :

Mr. Rive, of Connecticut, wrote Tracy in Congress :

"I have seen many of our friends, and all I have seen,
and many I have heard from, believe we must separate, and
that this is the most favorable moment."

Timothy Pickering wrote :

"The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits
and views and interests to those of the South and West."

Ex-Governor Griswald wrote Oliver Walcott :

"The project we had formed was to induce the Legisla-
tures of the New England States which remain Federal to
commence. They should call for a re-union of the North-
ern States."

The three States Mr. Griswald relied on were Massachu-
sett.s (then including Maine), Connecticut and New Hampshire.
Pickering wrote :

"I believe the proposition to secede will be welcomed
in Connecticut, and can we doubt in New Hampshire? New
York must be associated; how is her concurrence to be ob-

Cii Ai'. 17 Facts and Fai.skhoods. 105

tained? New York must be made the center of the New-
Confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey will follow, of
course, and Rhode Island of necessity."

George Cabot was cautious. He wrote :

"While a separation at some remote period may take
place, I think separation now is impracticable. The multitude
do not feel as the leaders, who saw power sliding from their
grip. We shall go the wa}- of all governments wholly pop-
ular, from bad to worse, until the evils, no longer tolerable,
shall generate their own remedies."

After consulting Chief Justice Parsons, Fisher Ames, and
Atkins, Cabot wrote from Boston:

"While some of the same opinion as Pickering think the
time not quite ready, for myself I cannot believe essential
good will come from separation while we retain the maxims
and principles (Democratic) which all experience and reason
pronounce to be impracticable and absurd. Even in New
England, where there is more wisdom and virtue than in any
other part of the United States, we are too Democratic alto-
gether, and I hold Democracy to be the government of the
worst."

"More virtue and wisdom." This is a sample of New Eng-
land's self-righteousness.

Griswald was in despair. He wrote Walcott that —

"While we are waiting for the time to arrive in New
England, it is certain that Democracy is making daily inroads
on us, and our means of resistance are lessening every day.
Yet it appears impossible to induce our friends to make any
decisive exertions."

Democracy was always the object of New England's hate.

"A Democracy," wrote Dennis' Portfolio, "is scarcely
tolerable at any period. It is on trial here and the issue will
l)e civil war."

The war came in the 60s ; Democracy on one side. Imperial-
ists on the other.

Fisher Ames said :

"Our country is too big for Union, too sordid for patriot-
ism, too Democratic for liberty."

io6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 17

Cabot is credibly reported to have openly advocated a Pres-
ident for life, and a hereditary Senate.

P>bruary 18, 1804, Burr was nominated for the Governor's
office in Nev^^ York.

Pickering wrote:

"The Federalists anxiously desire Burr's election. If
a separation of States is deemed proper for the New England
States, New York and New Jersey will naturally be united.
If Colonel Burr becomes Governor of New York by Federal
votes, will he not be considered the head?"

Griswald replied :

"Such is the jealousy of Massachusetts, it will be nec-
essary to allow her to take the lead. Her magnitude and
jealousy will render it necessary that the operation begin
there. The first active measures must come from Massa-
chusetts' Legislature next summer."

Hamilton wrote:

"Dismemberment of our Union will give no relief to our
real disease, which is Democracy, the poison of which by
subdivision will only be more concentrated in each part, and
the poison become more virulent."

Always Democracy.

Pickering wrote :

"By supporting Mr. Burr we gain some support, though
of a doubtful nature. We think Burr alone can break the
Democratic phalanx."

George Cabot wrote :

"If delay is tolerated. Democracy will have its work of
ruin accomplished."

Still harping on Democracy.

Congressman Plumer announced that a convention (in
the interest of secession) would be held in the fall and that Ham-
ilton would attend. Burr was not elected Governor of New
York, and soon after, in a duel, he killed Hamilton. The plan-
ned convention fell through, the Federals lost hope of the im-
mediate success of secession, but their work in that direction did
not cease.

Cabot wrote:
."We must wait. If the United States can be involved in
another war with Great Britain, our chance will come."

Chap. i8 Facts and Fai^sehoods. 107

They waited for that chance, but never slackened in preach-
ing the gospel of hate ; on the contrary, the virulence of that
hate, augmented as the years went by, hate of Democracy, hate
of the Union, because its highest officers were Democrats, hate
of the South because her people were a unit in voting for Dem-
ocratic officials.

Mr. Powell says:

"In all these efforts to sever the Union there was no
anti-slavery sentiment."

Nor was any anti-slavery sentiment mixed with all their hate
of the South. Federal hate of the Union and desire to secede
was based on fear and hate of Democracy.

Powell says :

"It must be borne in mind that not once in all this plot-
ting of 1803 and 1804 was the right of a State, or of a group
of States, to secede questioned. The only argument any
one made against secession was the unripeness of the com-
mon people. Not one flash of loyalty to the Central Gov-
ernment. Their intent was to create an oligarchy."

Why should there have been a flash of loyalty to the Cen-
tral Government? No party in America at that time thought that
more loyalty was due to the Union Government than to the State
Governments. This doctrine was never declared until Lin-
coln inaugurated war on the South, on the pretext that she was
disloyal to the Union. L^p to the very hour of that war Lin-
coln's own party held that the South had the right to secede, the
right to independence. Lincoln, Seward, Wade of Ohio, Phil-
ips of Massachusetts, and hosts of other hign Republican speak-
ers had publicly declared the South's right to secede, as will be
shown later on.

CHAPTER XVIII.

New England's Effort to Secede in 1812 and 1814 and 1815.

The extracts given in tlic preceding pages show how anx-
ious were New England politicians, preachers and newspapers to
get New England to secede from the Union in 1796, and again in
1803 and 1804. We will now show New England's still greater
anxiety to get out of the Union in 181 2, 1814 and 181 5.'' New
England selected this time to secede, because the Union was in

io8 Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap. i8

the throes of war with a powerful foe. Was this from a desire
to do the Union as much harm as possible? In 1799, when the
Federahst, John Adams, was President, FederaHsts counseled
obedience, honor and respect to "rulers." When Democrats
were in office their tune was changfed. We will first gfive extracts
from the sermons of that time, to show the spirit of the people.
The Rev. Dr. Parish, of Boston, a divine of hig^h standing and
influence, in 17QQ instructed his cong^resfation to hold their mag-
istrates in "reverence, honor and obedience." even to the extent
of using- for them the sword. "Cursed," said this divine, "is
he that keepeth back his sword from Ijlood. and he that hath
none, let him sell Iris coat and buy one." In a sermon delivered
April 7, 1814. at Ryefield, INIass., the Reverend Parish felt and
talked in a very different strain. The Government was then at
war with Great Britain, and New England, through newspapers,
politicians and from pulpits, denounced Government officials as
a band of ruffiians, and held up Old England as the most beneficent
country that ever was.

The Reverend Parish said in a sermon :

"No peace will be made until the people sa}' there shall
be no war. War will continue till the mountains are melted
in blood, till every field in America is white with the bones
of her people."

In another sermon at Ryefield he discoursed as follows :

"The Israelites became weary of yielding the fruit of
their labor to pamper their splendid tyrants. Where is our
Moses? Where is the rod of his miracles? Where is our
Aaron ? Alas ! No voice comes from the burning bush.
Such is the temper of American Republicans (Democrats at
that time were called Republicans). A new language must
be invented before we can attempt to express the baseness of
their conduct or describe the rottenness of their hearts. Do
you not owe it to your children, owe it to your God, to make
peace for yourselves ? You may as well expect the cataract
of Niagara to turn its current to the head of Superior as a
wicked Congress to make pause in the work of destroying
this country. Tyrants are the same on the banks of the Nile
and the Potomac, at Memphis and at Washington, in a Mon-
archy or in a Republic ; like the worshippers of Moloch, the
supporters of this vile administration sacrifice their children
on the altar of Democracy. Tlie full vials of (lcs])()tism are
poured out on your heads, and yet you may challenge the

CiiAi'. 1 8 Facts axd Falsehoods.

109

plodding Israelite, tjie stu])iil African, the feeble Chinese,
the drowsy Turk, or the frozen exiles of Siberia to equal
you in tame submission to the powers that be."

The reader's attention is especially called to two words in
the above extract ; words of the deepest signiticance. "Stupid
Africans." These word.^ are something to ])onder over. "Stupid
Africa)is." L'p to that time, 1814, and for years after, the Fed-
eral party had no respect and no love for negroes. New England
men had imported negroes from Africa, consequently knew some-
thing of negro nature. At that time they had no more idea of
setting the African on a pinnacle high above the Caucasian than
of putting the "feeble Chinese" thereon. All through the years
from 1796 up to the year the Rev. Parish preached his sermon
( 1814) calling negroes "stupid Africans," the Federal party held
negroes as inferior to the white race. In one of his sermons this
eager secession preacher said :

"Here we must trample on the mandates of despotism,
or here we must remain slaves forever. Has not New England
as much to apprehend as the sons of Jacob had? Let every
man who sanctions this war remember he is covering himself
and his country with blood ; the blood of the slain will cry
out from the ground against him. This war not only toler-
ates crimes, but calls for crimes — crimes are the food of its
life, the arms of its strength. This war is a monster which
every hour gormandizes a thousand crimes, and yet cries give !
give ! The first moment the Dragon moved, piracy and mur-
der were legalized. Those Western States which have been
violent for this abominable war of murder, God has given
them blood to drink. Their men have fallen ; their lament-
ations are deep and loud."

These extracts from sermons are taken from Carpenter's
Logic of History, pages 37, 38, 39.

A sermon delivered in Trinity Church, Boston, by the Rev.
F. F. Gardiner, rector, April 9, 1812, contains this:

"England is willing to sacrifice everything to conciliate
us, except her honor and independence. The British, after
all, save us by their convoys infinitely more property than
they deprive us of. \\'here they take one ship they protect
twenty. Where they commit one outrage, they do many acts
of kindness."

A discourse delivered by this same secessionist divine on
July 23, 1813. contained these passages:

no Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

"This is a war unexampled in the history of the world,
wantonly proclaimed on the most frivolous pretenses against
a nation from whose friendship we might derive the most
signal advantages.

"Let no consideration, my brethren, deter you at all
times, and in all places, from execrating the present war.
It is unjust, foolish, ruinous.

"As Mr. Madison had declared war, let Mr. Madison
carry it on. This Union has long since been virtually dis-
solved. It is full time that this part of the United States
should take care of itself."

The Reverend Dr. Osgood, pastor of the Medford Church,
Massachusetts, in a discourse delivered April 8th, iSio, has this:

"The strong prepossession of so great a proportion of my
fellow-citizens in favor of a race of demons (the people of
the South) and against a nation (the British) of more re-
ligion, virtue, good faith, generosity, beneficence, than any
that now is or ever has been upon the face of the earth,
wrings my soul with anguish, and fills my soul with appre-
hensions and terror of the judgments of heaven upon this
sinful people."

Think of it, gentle reader, this good Christian preacher,
this follower of the Merciful Nazarene, tells his audience that his
soul is wrung with anguish and apprehension and terror of God's
judgments upon them, because they had not all accepted the gos-
pel of hate, and come to believe that the people of the South
were a "race of demons," and the British the purest and best
nation on the earth. In another discourse he Reverend David
Osgood said :

"Each man who volunteers his services in such a cause
(the war with Great Britain) or loans his money for its sup-
port, or by his conversation, his writings, or in any other
mode of influence, encourages its prosecution, that man is an
accomplice in the wickedness, and loads his conscience with
the blackest crimes, and brings the guilt of blood upon his
soul, and in the sight of God and his law, he is a murderer."

On May 9, 1809, the Reverend Osgood discoursed before
the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislature of Massachusetts,
and preached resistance to the Union Government, as follows :

"If we would," said this reverend disunionist. "pre-
serve the liberties of that struggle (1776) so dearly purchas-

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods. hi

ed, the call for resistance now is as urgent as it was for-
merly against the mother country."

.The same Reverend Osgood, June 26. 1812, in a sermon,
predicted war on the South. He said :

"If at the present moment no symptoms of civil war a])-
pear, there certainly shall soon, unless the courage of the
war party fail them. A civil was is as certain as the events
that happen to the known laws and established course of
nature."

In a sermon delivered in Ryefield, 1814, Rev. D. Parish had
this:

"How will the supporters of this anti-Christian war en-
dure the sentence., endure their own reflection, endure the
fire that forever burns, the worm which never dies, the Ho-
sannas of Heaven, while the smoke of their torment ascends
forever and ever?"

The following extracts from the Nez^' E)i gland Press may
be found in Carpenter's Logic of History, pages 40, 41 and 42.

The Boston Centinel, December 10, 1814. had this:

"Those who startle at the danger of the separation tell
us the soil of New England is hard and sterile, that deprived
of the productions of the South, we would soon become a
wretched race of cowherds and fishermen. Do these people
forget what energy can do for a people? Have they read
of Holland? Holland threw off its yoke of Spain (our
\^irginia) and its chapels became churches, its poor men's
cottages princes' palaces."

Was it not the very insanity of hate to liken the Presidency
of \'irginia's men. Washington, Jefiferson, Monroe and Madison,
to the despotism Philip II. of Spain wielded over Holland? Fed-
eralists called these four men's election to ofifice the "Virginia
Dynasty," and ramped and raged over their Presidency as the
crudest despotism.

It is said that to make a treaty of commerce with the
enemy is to violate the Constitution and to sever the Union.
Are these not already virtually destroyed? — Boston Centinel, •
Ditc. 14. 1814.

On December 15, 1814. the Centinel had this:

"By a commercial treaty with England, which shall
provide for the i.dmission of such States as mav wish to

112 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

come into it, and which shall prohibit England from making
a treaty with the South or West, our commerce will be se-
cured to us, our standing in the Nation raised to its proper
level, and New England's feelings will no longer be sport-
ed wMth or her interests violated."

And this while the Union Government was at war with Old
England. This wdiile the men of the South were bravely doing
all they could by their valor in the army and their money to aid
the Government in its struggle with a powerful foe.

Though prohibited by acts of Congress, all during this coun-
try's war with Old England, New England carried on with the
enemy illicit intercourse.

The moment our government gunboats w^ere out of Boston
harbor, British merchatnmen, continually hovering about the
coast, would come in, deliver their contraband cargo, receive
specie and British bills of exchange, and return for another car-
go. If States could blush, New England's face, even to this day.
would burn with shame at the false, the treacherous part, she
played during the second war wath Great Britain.

The Boston Cciifiiicl, December 7, 1814, had this:

"If we oppose them (the administration) with a high-
minded and steady conduct, who shall say we shall not beat
them all? Why this delay? (Delay of making a separate
peace with Old England and seceding from the Union.)
Why leave that to chance which our firmness should com-
mand? Let no difficulties stay our course, no danger draw
us back. We are convinced the time has come when Massa-
chusetts must make a resolute stand. The sentiment is hour-
ly extending, and in the Northern States will soon be uni-
versal, that with respect to the South we are in the condi-
tion of a conquered people."

New England had been conquered at the polls. Democracy
iiad won by ballots the victory over Federalism. This was the
conquest New England men rankled and raged over. On Janua-
ry 10, 1814. Deerfield, Massachusetts, sent a petition, numer-
ously signed, to the State authorities, from which we take the
•following extract :

"Should the present administration, with the aid and
adherence of the Southern States, still persist in the prosecu-
tion of this wicked war, and in unconstitutionally creating
• new States in the mud of Louisiana, he inhabiants of which

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods. 113

country are as ignorant as the alligators of its swamps, in
opposition to the rights and privileges of New England,
much as we deprecate a separation of this Union, we deem
it an evil much less to be dreaded than co-operation with
them in their nefarious projects."

What rights and privileges had New England over and
above the rights and privileges of other States? The word
privilege is out of place under a free and equal government.
The Federalists of New England fancied themselves more fit to
govern than Democrats. They fancied the privilege of Rule
was theirs by right divine. The love of power and high place
was the very passion of the Federal soul.

In Crisis No. 3 we find this :

"The public welfare will be better promoted in a sep-
arate than in one Federal Constitution. The attempt to
unite this vast territory under one head is absurd." — Logic
of History.

The Federal Republican, 1814. asked this question:

"Is there now the least foundation to build a hope on that
this Union will last twelve months? A peaceable separa-
tion will be for the happiness of all sections." .

In an Ipswich, Massachusetts, memorial, September 18,
[813, we find this:

"iTie Government of these States has almost completed
their ruin. The time has arrived when Massachusetts
must make a resolute stand. What shall we do to be saved?
Only one thing. The people must rise in their majesty and
compel their unworthy servants to obey their will. The
Union is already practically dissolved."

The Boston Ccntincl. September 10, 1814, liad this:

"The Union of the Northern and Southern States is
very much opposed to the interests of both sections. The
extent of territory is too large to be governed by the same
representative body. Each section will be better satisfied
to govern itself. Each is large and populous enough for
its own protection. The Western States will govern them-
selves better than the Atlantic can govern them. It is cer-
tain that the Atlantic States do not want the aid or counsel
of the Western States. The public welfare would be more

114 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

promoted in a separate than in a Federal Constitution."

This was true then and is true now.

"The sufferings so thick about us have aroused New
England. She will now meet every danger until her rights
are returned to the full. She will say to the men of New
England, if they hope to lead in the cause of New England's
independence, they must do it in the spirit of New England
men." — Boston Centincl, December 7, 1814.
The Boston Advertiser, 1814, said:

"Our plan is to withhold our money and make a sepa-
rate peace with Great Britain."

The Federal Republican, 1814, had this:

"The Eastern States are marching steadily and straight
forward up to revolution. In times past there was much
talk and loud menace, but little acting, among the friends
of reform (secession from the Union). Now little is said
and much done. The new constitution of the Hartford
convention is to go into operation as soon as two or three
States shall have adopted it."

On January 5, 181 5, at a meeting held at Reading. Massa-
chusetts, a string of resolutions was passed, one of which is as
follows :

"Resolved, That we place the fullest confidence in the
Government and Legislature of Massachusetts, and in the
State authorities of New England, and to them, under God,
we look for aid and direction."

These Federalists, as was their offspring, the Republican
party, were strong Statf^s' riglits advocates rp to tl"'c hour the
war begun at Fort Sumter. Then they made a sudden sum-
mersault, and declared States' rights and secession unpardonable
crimes resulting from leprosy of the mind as foul as leprosy of
the body.

The Boston Repertory, 1814, was so eager for New England
to leave the Union, and so full of the idea that there would be
a war with the South, it addressed the people of New England
with an air of command :

"Americans !" cried out the Repertory, "prepare your
arms! You will soon be called to use them!"
The New York Commercial Advertiser had this:

OrAP. 1 8 Facts and Falsehoods. 115

"Old Massachusetts is as terrible to the Americans now
as she was to the British Cabinet in 1775. America has her
Biites and her Norths. Let the commercial .States breast
themselves to the shock. Then, and not till then, shall they
humble the pride of Virginia and chastise the insolence of
the madmen of Kentucky and Tennessee, who aspire to the
Government of these States."

January 31, 1814, the citizens of Newburyport, Massachu-
setts, sent a memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, from
which we get this extract :

"Our unquestionable rights are invaded. We call upon
our State Legislature to protect us in our privileges, to de-
fend which we are ready to resist unto blood. We are ready
to aid you to our utmost power in securing our privileges,
peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must ; and we pledge
ourselves in support of every measure the dignity and liber-
ties of this free, sovereign and independent State may seem
to your wisdom to demand."

The only complaint these men had against the Government
was, it was waging war with Great Britain.

The Federal Republican. November 7, 18 14. put forth this
terrible threat :

"On or before the 4th of July, if James Madison is not
out of office, a new form of government will be in operation
in the Eastern section of the LTnion ; the contest then will be
whether to adhere to the old or join the new government."

From an open letter to James Madison, published and large-
ly circulated through New York and New England, in May, 1814,
titled "Northern Grievances," we give the following:

"If the impending negotiations with Great Britain are
defeated ; if the friendly and conciliatory proposals of the
enemy should be met so as not to terminate this infamous
war, it is necessary to apprise you (President Madison) that
such conduct will be no longer borne. The injured States
of New England will be compelled by duty and honor to dash
into atoms the bonds of tyranny. It will then be too late to
retreat ; the die will be cast ; freedom purchased. A separa-
tion of the States will be inevitable. Motives numerous and
urgent will demand this measure. The oppressors will be
responsible for the momentous events arising from the dis-
solution of the Union. It will be their work. Posterity

ii6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

will admire the independent spirit of the Eastern section of
our country, and will enjoy the fruits of our firmness and
our wisdom. The descendants of the South and West will
have reason to curse the folly of your counsels. Bold and
resolute in the sacred object, no force can withstand our
powerful arms. The most numerous army will melt before
our manlv streng^th. History will instruct you that the feeble
debility of the South could never face the vigorous activity
of the North. A single spark of Northern liberty will ex-
plode the whole atmosphere of sultry Southern despotism.
Do vou imagine the energy of the Northern freemen is
to be smothered?"

No human was trying to smother their energies. On the
contrary, Mr. Madison would have been delighted had those
Northern freemen put some of their energy into the war against
Great Britain, instead of doing all they could to give aid and com-
fort to the enemy.

"Do you think," continued this curious letter, "that we
will allow ourselves to be trampled on ? and by whom ? The
Southern and Western States ?"

History does not show the slightest sign of any effort or wish
of the Southern and Western States to trample on New England.

"The aggregate strength," continues- the letter, "of the
South and West, if brought against the North and East, would
be driven into the ocean or back to their own wilds, and they
might think themselves fortunate to escape other punishment
We would fight for freedom, they to enslave. Beware !
Pause ! before you take the fatal plunge. You, sir, have car-
ried your oppression to the utmost stretch. We will no
longer submit. Name an immediate peace. Protect our
seamen. Unless you comply with these just demands with-
out delay, ivc zvill withdrazv from the Union."

Oh. would to God New England then and there had with-
drawn from the Union ! It would have been a bloodless with-
drawal. Madison and Monroe had both expressed the opinion
that to coerce a seceding State would be suicidal to freedom.
Legal divcice irou) the Slates New England had so long hated
might have abated somewhat the insanity of that hate. Juster,
kinder feelings might ha\e softened her heart toward a people
who certainly had not given New England cause to hate. Had
separation then taken place the Northern people might not have

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods. 117

aided and abetted the Republican party in committing the awful
crime of drenching American soil with brothers' blood. Had
New England States then seceded, no blood would have been shed
to force them back into a Union she detested. Every Democrat
in America knew and knows that the Union Government had
and has no moral or legal right to coerce seceding States. Such
was then the opinion, both North and South. In the convention
of 1787 the question of secession and coercion was up for dis-
cussion. Madison said :

"A Union of States with such an ingredient as coercion
would seem to provide for its own destruction."

It certainly would provide for the destruction of the prin-
ciples of liberty itself. Looked at by the lurid light of the 60s,
one expression in the above letter to President Madison will
make the reader pause and reflect a moment. The "feeble debil-
ity of the South could never face the vigorous activity of the\
North."

The Republican party had inherited from its progenitor, the
Federal, the above idea of the South's feeble debility. Members
of that party invited United States Senators and Congressmen
to take their wives and daughters out to see the first fight of the
war, especially to "see the rebels run at sight of Union soldiers."
Everybody knows how the rebels ran at Bull Run.

Republican officers of the Union army have expressed their
opinion of the South's "feeble debility." General Don Piatt, a
Union officer, on this subject has this:

"The true story of the late war," wrote General Piatt,
in 1887, "has not yet been told. It probably never will be
told. It is not flattering to our people ; unpalatable truths
seldom find their way into history. How rebels fought the
world will never know ; for two years they kept an army
in the field that girt their borders with a fire that shriveled
our forces as they marched in, like tissue paper in a flame.
Southern people were animated by a feeling that the word
fanaticism feebly expresses. (Love of liberty expresses it.)
For two years this feeling held those rebels to a conflict in
which they were invincible. The North poured out its noble
soldiery by the thousands, and they fought well, but their
broken columns and thinned lines drifted back upon our
capital, with nothing but shameful disasters to tell of the
dead, the dying, the lost colors and the captured artillery.
Grant's road from the Rapidan to Richmond was marked

ii8 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

by a highway of human bones. The Northern army had
more killed than the Confederate Generals had in command."

"We can lose five men to their one and win," said Grant.
The men of the South, half starved, unsheltered, in rags, shoe-
less, yet Grant's marches from the Rapidan to Richmond left
dead behind him more men than the Confederates had in the
field !

General Piatt speaks as follows of the "feeble debility" of a
Virginian General :

"It is strange," says Piatt, "what magic lingers about
the mouldering remains of Virginia's rebel leaders. Lee's
very name confers renown on his enemies. The shadow of
Lee's surrendered sword gives renown to an otherwise un-
known grave." (Grant's.)

The Reverend H. W. Beecher preached a sermon in his
church on the "Price of Liberty," which he said was not only eter-
nal vigilance, but eternal self-sacrifice. Beecher astonished his
congregation by illustrations from the South.

"Where," exclaimed the preacher, "shall we find such
heroic self-denial, such upbearing under every physical dis-
comfort, such patience in poverty, in distress, in absolute
want, as we find in the Southern army? They fight better
in a bad cause than you do in a good one ; they fight better
for a passion than you do for a sentiment. They fight well
and bear up under trouble nobly, they suffer and never com-
plain, they go in rags and never rebel, they are in earnest for
their liberty, they believe in it, and if they can they mean
to get it."

What words can express the baseness, the devilish wicked-
ness of a party which waged a bloody war to rob such people of
the liberty which was theirs by right? Theirs by inheritance
from their forefathers of '76?

The Republican leaders of the 60s were as ignorant of the
nature of Southern men as were their progenitors who talked
of the "South's feeble debility." Piatt relates an interview he
had with Lincoln before the outbreak of the war,

"Lincoln's low estimate of humanity," says Piatt, "blind-
ed him to the South. He could not undertsand that men
would fight for an idea. He thought the South's movement
a sort of political game of bluflF."

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods. 119

"The South can't fight," said one; "she has no re-

sources."

Hannibal Hamhn said :

"The South will have to come to us for arms, and come
without money to pay for them."

"And for coffins," said John P. Hale, with a laugh.

"To put a regiment in the field," said Mr. Speaker
Banks, "costs more than the entire income of an entire
Southern State."

It was not long before the men of the North found that the
South's soldiers supplied themselves with arms and clothing capt-
ured from Union soldiers.

Extracts from an address to the Hartford convention :
"The once venerable Constitution has expired by disso-
lution in the hands of the wicked men (Democrats) who were
sworn to protect it. Its spirit, with the precious souls of its
first founders, has fled forever. Its remains will now rest
in the silent tomb. At your hands, therefore, we demand
deliverance. New England is unanimous, and we announce
our irrevocable decree that the tyrannical oppression of those
who at present usurp the power of the Constitution is be-
yond endurance, and we will resist it." — Boston Centinel,
December 28, 1814.

"New England will look with an eye of doubt on those
who oppose us. She will meet every danger and go through
every difficulty, until her rights are restored. Throwing ofif all
connection with this wasteful war and making peace with
the enemy would be a wise and manly course." — Boston Cen-
tinel, December 17, 1814.

Extracts from a memorial of the citizens of Newburyport
to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 31, 1814:

"Is there a Federalist patriot in America who thinks
it is his duty to shed his blood for Madison, for Jefferson,
and the host of ruffians in Congress who have set their
faces against us for years, and spirited up the brutal part of
the populace to destroy us? Mr. Madison cannot complete
his term of service if this war continues ; it is not possible.
Mr. Madison may rest assured there is in the hearts of many
thousands in this abused, ruined country a sentiment and
energy to resist unto destruction when his mad men shall
call it into action."

I20 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

The following extract from an address to the Hartford con-
vention, December 24, 1814, will show the feeling of the Federal
disimionists toward white people of the South, as well as toward
the negroes :

"Long enough," says this address, "have we paid taxes
and fought the battles for the Southern States ; long enough
have we been scouted and abused by men who claim a right
to rule us ; long enough have we been slaves to the senseless
representatives of the South, the equally senseless natives of
Africa, and the barbarous huntsmen of the Western wilder-
ness. Realities alone can work our deliverance, and deliver-
ance we solemnly and irrevocably decree to be our right and
we will obtain it." — Boston Centinel, December 24, 1814.

The reader will note the significant phrase, "equally senseless
natives of Africa." A few years from that time New England
placed negroes on a tall pinnacle and put saintly aureoles around
their heads, and all good Republicans did them homage. On the
8th of October, 1814, a committee of the Massachusetts Legisla-
ture submitted a report by Mr. Otis, chairman, in favor of calling
a convention for all the New England States with the object of
forming a Northeastern Confederacy. The result was the Hart-
ford convention, which met December 15, 1814. This convention,
as we have shown by extracts, took the strongest possible stand
for States' rights. In a report this convention enunciated its
opinion of States' rights in these words :

"It is not only the right, but the duty, of each State to in-
terpose its authority in the manner best calculated to secure
its own protection. States must be their own judges and ex-
ecute their own decisions."

New England, during the second war with Great Britain,
acted boldly and openly on States' rights prmciples. She refused
to aid and support the Union. Her preachers, press and politi-
cians praised the English and in every way manifested a friendly
leel'iig toward Old England, all the while abusing their own Gov-
ernment as managed by a "gang of ruffians." February 14, 1814,
the two Houses of the Massachusetts Legislature put forth a re-
port in which is this solemn declaration:

"The question of New England's withdrawal from the
Union is not a question of power or of right to separate, but
only a question of time and expediency."

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods. 121

A few years later Massachusetts called such doctrines black-
est treason, and sent armies on the Southern people to kill, con-
quer or annihilate them for having acted on those doctrines.

The doctrine of States' rights was taught by politicians, press
and preachers of New England up to the very hour the South
seceded. This fact is indisputable. Not until Lincoln began war
on the South were secession and States' rights called a political
crime. The Olive Branch (1814) said:

"Massachusetts has dared the national Government to
conflict. She has seized it by the throat, determined to stran-
gle it if she can."

A committee of the New York Legislature (1814) made the
following statement :

"It is the opinion of this committee that the New
England Federalists mean to make peace with the enemy and
to forcibly separate New England from the Union."

So universal was this opinion, on the nth of October, 1814.
thirteen Democratic Senators and thirty-five Congressmen issued
a strong but kindly worded protest against New England's dis-
union movements, to which one of New England's Federal leaders
angrily replied :

"Do you imagine that we will allow ourselves to be tram-
pled on by the South and West?"

The only shadow of being trampled on was the fact that the
Democrats of the South and West had elected Democrats to the
national offices, and the South and West approved of the war then
going on with Great Britain, and gave the administration all the
moral and financial support they could, opposed to the wishes of
New England.

A speaker in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1814 made the
following solemn declaration:

"The Constitution has expired by dissolution. The
Union Government is beyond endurance ; we will resist. New
England will bear no half way measures. She wants men
who will lead the cause of New England independence."

An address delivered in the Hartford convention rehearses
the wrongs it was claimed that New England suflfered which ne-
cessitated secession from the Union :

"They," the said wrongs, "may be traced to implacable
combinations of individuals and States to monopolize power
and office, and to trample without remorse on the rights and

122 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

interests of the commercial section of the Union."

Because of these fancied wrongs New England hated Demo-
crats, hated the South, hated the Union, was eager to leave it,
and fiercely wanted to war on the Southern people. Up to that
hour not one particle of anti-slavery sentiment was mingled with
New England's animosity, or with her desire to secede from the
Union. Up to the year 1815, with New England's insane hatred
of the Southern whites, she had not yet mixed an insane love for
Southern blacks. Up to that year New England's political
speakers, press and preachers, when referring to negroes, called
them "stupid Africans." "senseless blacks," or other names con-
veying contempt and belief in negro inferiority.

In his work, "Nullification and Secession," E. P. Powell says :

"It is very partial partisan reading of American history
not to see that from the acceptance of the Constitution in 1790
there has been a tendency to assert the rights of States, and
the rights of States to sever relation to the Union. New
England, in 1803-04, tried to get five States to secede, New
York, New Jersey and the New England States. In 181 2- 14
New England practically withdrew from co-operation with
the Union."

Mr. E. P. Powell, of New York, wrote "Nullification and Se-
cession" in 1897, thirty-two years after the war of conquest on
the South. A conquest which, as Mr. Powell knows, was made
by the Republican party on pretense that that party looked on se-
cession as the most damnable crime a people can commit. Was
Mr. Powell afraid to tell the whole truth about the secession prin^
ciples held and taught by the Republican party and its progenitors,
the Federals? Mr. Powell timidly says:

"From 1790 there has been a tendency to assert States*
rights, and the right of the States to sever relation to the
Union."

The word tendency means an inclination, a leaning, a drift
in one or another direction. Did not Mr. Powell know that the
Federal party, almost from the formation of the Union, had been
dissatisfied with it ? He certainly knew, as he shows in his work,
"Nullification and Secession," that this party not only had a "ten-
dency" toward States' rights and secession in 1804 and on to
the end of the second war with Great Britain, but a decided inten-
tion and determination to get the Northeastern States to secede
and to form a Northeastern Confederacy. Mr. Powell knows

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods. ' 123

how hard the men of New England worked for secession, and how
boldly they avowed and maintained the doctrine of States' rights.
Is it possible that he does not also know that the Republican party
continued the work of the Federals in that direction up to the
very hour of the South's secession? Does he not further know
that after the Republican party conquered the South on the pre-
text that it (the Republican party) so loved the Union it waged a
bloody war to save it, this same Republican party now tries to
bury out of sight its former advocacy of secession and States'
rights, and frowns severely on any writer who dares to bring to
the front that part of its history? Was it fear of Republican
frowns that made Mr. Powell use the gentle word tendency
instead of the plain English word advocacy, and the strongest
sort of advocacy at that ?

S. D. Carpenter, a close and critical student of political
events, in his invaluable work. The Logic of History, published
in 1864, says:

"The Northeastern States early sought to create preju-
dice and disunion, not on account of any existing facts, but to
array section against section, to stimulate hatred and discord
for the purpose of accelerating their darling object, dissolution
of the Union and the establishment of a Northeastern Con-
federacy, For years the disunionists of the North have mani-
fested the boldness of a Cromwell, the assiduity of beavers,
the cunning of a fox and the malignity of Iscariot."

Do not the extracts I have laid before the reader show de-
termination to arouse hatred of the Southern people ? The reader
must never lose sight of the fact that Federal and Republican
hatred sprung from hatred of Democracy. The Union was hated
because the majority of men in the Union elected too many Dem-
ocratic Presidents. These Presidents, Washington, Jefferson.
Monroe and Madison, were hated and called the "Virginia dy-
nasty." A New Englander was the first man in the American
Congress to threaten disunion. January ii, 181 1, Josiah Quincy,
of Massachusetts, from the floor of Congress declared:

"The purchase of Louisiana and the admission of that
State into the Union would be a virtual dissolution of the
Union, rendering it the right of all, as it becomes the duty of
some men to prepare definitely for the separation of the
States, amicably if they might, forcibly if they must."

Mr. Quincy reduced the above to writing and sent it to the
Clerk of the House.

124 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. i8

Mr. Poindexter of Virginia, sprang to his feet:

"That," he cried, " is the first threat on the floor of Con-
gress to break up the Union." — Hildreth's History of United
States, Vol. IV., page 226.

In 1 81 3 Mr. Quincy, this same zealous secessionist and dis-
unionist, was chairman of a committee in the Massachusetts Legis-
lature, still pushing on secession plans. Mr. Quincy offered the fol-
lowing resolution, which was adopted:

"Resolved, That the act passed the 8th day of April, 1812,
entitled, 'An Act for the admission of the State of Louisiana
into the Union and to extend the laws of the United States
to said State,' is a violation of the United States Constitution,
and that the Senators of the State of Massachusetts be in-
structed, and the Represenatives thereof be requested to
use their endeavor to obtain the repeal of the same."

Governor Strong, of Massachusetts, wanted New England to
secede from the Union, and after secession schemes were stopped
by the glorious ending of the second war with Great Britain, won
by Southern soldiers under the immortal Jackson, Governor
Strong, to console himself and his friends, said :

"Even though New England has failed to break the
Union, the Western States ere long of themselves will get
out of the Union. We then will be happy neighbors, whereas
in a Union will always be friction."

The reader may have observed in some of the foregoing ex-
tracts references made to Massachusetts' jealousy. Bancroft, the
historian, himself a son of Massachusetts, said of his mother
State :

"An ineradical dread of the coming power of the South
and West lurked in New England, especially in Massachu-
setts."

Jealousy owes its life to selfishness ; it is a mean quality of
which every large mind is ashamed ; when its origin is generally
known, even those affected with jealousy will strive to suppress
or at least hide it.

A sample of New England's jealousy in this way may be
found in Mr. Rives' "Life of Madison." Rives states that in the
convention which framed the Constitution, Mr. Gouverneur
Morris, delegate from Pennsylvania, was made spokesman for
the Eastern States. Mr. Morris said:

Chap. i8 Facts and Falsehoods.

125

"I look forward to that range of States which will soon
be formed in the West. These new States will know less of
the public interests than the old, will have interests in many
respects different. It must be apparent they will not be
able to furnish men equally as enlightened as the Eastern
men to share in the administration of the common interest.
If the Western States get power in their hands they will ruin
the Atlantic States' interests. I think the rule of representa-
tion ought to be so fixed as to secure to the Atlantic States
the prevalence in the national council. This will provide a
defense to the Northeast."

Mr. Gouverneur Morris never thought of providing a de-
fense of the Western States against Eastern greed of power
and money. Mr. King and Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, took
up the subject, repeating the alarm sounded by Mr. Morris.
Mr. Gerry said :

"If the Western States acquire power they will abuse it ;
they will draw our wealth into the Western country and
oppose commerce."

One of the charges New England repeatedly made against
the South was that she opposed commerce. This supposed oppo-
sition was used to excuse their desire to secede from the Union
and form a Northeastern Confederacy. These jealous and selfish
men submitted to the convention the following proposal :

"Whatever may be the future population of the new
States in the West, the total number of their representatives
shall not exceed the total number of representatives of the
old States."

The men from Virginia firmly opposed this proposition:
"The new States of the West," argued Colonel Mason,
of \^irginia, "must be treated as equals and subjected to no
degrading discrimination. They will have the same
.pride and other passions we have, and will probably revolt
from the Union if they are not in all respects placed on an
equal footing with the Eastern States."

Mr. Madison said:

"I am clear and firm in the opinion that no unfavorable

distinction should be made between the Atlantic and the

Western States, either in policy or justice."

The proposition of the Eastern men was put to a vote:
Yeas — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware.

126 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 19

Nays — Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
Pennsylvania was divided.

Judge, oh, you men of the West ! which section. New England
or the South, displayed the higher sense of justice? Less selfish
greed for power? But for the resistance of Virginia's freedom-
loving men. Mason and Madison, the limbs of the infant Her-
cules of the West would have been so bound by the men of the
East, the West would have been crippled and cramped for life,
or would have broken its bonds asunder and by its sword won
equality.

CHAPTER XIX.

Contains Further Evidence Proving New England's Secession
and Disunion Sentiments — Her Eagerness to Sever the

Union in Tzvain.

The extracts given in Chapter XVIII. are mostly from S. D.
Carpenter's Logic of History; a few are from the Democratic
Handbook. As the case of the South versus the Republican party
will ere long be taken into posterity's court for final judgment, I
trust the reader will find the evidence bearing on this case of suffi-
cient interest to read the following extracts, taken from Mr. E.
P. Powell's work, "Nullification and Secession :"

Extracts.

"When the United States declared war in 1812 against
Great Britain the Federalists in Congress issued an address
to the people of New England declaring the war needless and
unwise. The Massachusetts House of Representatives
promptly voted an address denouncing the war as a wanton
sacrifice of New England's interests, and calling for town
meetings to denounce the war. The address to the people:

" 'Let the sound of your disapprobation of this war be
loud and deep ; let there be no volunteers except for defensive
war.' "

"This," remarks Mr. Powell, "at the very outset was
practical secession from the Union."

"Every possible hindrance was thrown in the way of
securing enlistments for the army. Those who did enlist were
arrested on real or fictitious charges of debt, and the courts
cheerfully insisted that 'while a man was debtor he was the

Chap. 19 Facts and Falsehoods. 127

property of the creditor and could not be allowed to leave the
State.' "

Governor Griswald of Connecticut declared he did not be-
lieve the militia of that State could be ordered to obey a Continen-
tal officer. The Legislature of Connecticut resolved that the con-
duct of His Excellency the Governor in refusing to order the
militia of this State into the service of the United States on the
requisition of the Secretary of War, met with the entire approba-
tion of the Assembly.

"The South and West were overwhelmingly loyal to the
Union ; the Southern people were devoted to the Union. The
Federalists declared it was capable of proof 'that Madison
and Jefferson were in league with Napoleon.' The clergy
preached and the politicians orated in the same strain. As
1 812 drew toward a close the condition of affairs was pitiful.
Madison in his message spoke warmly of the course taken by
New England, as practically destroying the Union ; instead of
one nation we were acting as two in the face of the enemy.
He defined the war as an expression of our determination to
compel England to formally renounce the right of impress-
ment of sailors on American ships. Along the ocean coast
the British had adopted a war of incursion, plunder and the
torch. They had burned several towns in Connecticut and
elsewhere, had occupied Washington, driven out the Govern-
ment and burned the capitol. Everywhere a determined front
of the people was seen except in the East. No son of New
England can remember without pain and shame the record
of that section."

With how much more pain and shame ought New England
to remember her course toward the South in the years of the 6o's ?
The South only acted on the principles of secession New Eng-
land had openly taught from the hour she entered the Union, yet,
more savage than any enraged tiger, New England turned on the
South, shouting rebel! traitor! traitor! rebel! and when Lincoln
let slip the dogs of war, as they bounded southward. New Eng-
land sicked them on to greater fury, crying, "On, Lion ! On, Tiger!
On, Wolf ! Tear ! Rend ! Devour !"

Unlike New England, the South did not choose a time to
secede when it could hurt the Union. New England deliberately
and of set purpose deferred secession until the Union was in the
throes of war with a powerful enemy.

It was stated at that time that —

128 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 19

"Two-thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment
eating beef provided by American (New England) contract-
ors. The road to St. Reges is covered with droves of cattle
and the river with rafts, destined for the English. 'Were it
not for these supplies,' wrote General Isard to the Secretary
of War, 'the British forces would soon suffer a famine.' In
return Old England exempted Massachusetts, Connecticut
and New Hampshire from blockade."

"The Federalists now discussed the plan of withdrawing
all New England troops to their own soil. Governor Critten-
den of Vermont issued orders to Vermont regiments in New
York to return home. The officers read the proclamation to
the troops ; all of them united in sending back word to Crit-
tenden that they would not obey him. 'We are,' said they,
'in the service of the United States, and your power over us
is suspended until we are discharged. We regard your proc-
lamations with mingled emotions of pity and contempt.' "
After Lawrence's splendid sea fight the whole nation held a
holiday, but the Massachusetts Legislature passed a resolution
that—

"It does not become a religious people to express any
approbation of military or naval exploits not immediately
defensive."

"This was twaddle," remarks Powell. It was worse
than twaddle. It was an effort to throw a religious cloak
over a mean, contemptible act,

"The proposition was discussed of forming a separate
treaty of peace with Great Britain."

"The Governor of Connecticut in August withdrew all
the State militia from the command of national officers. New
England was practically in rebellion. It had seceded from
united national action, and had set up a new Confederacy.
Governor Strong called the Legislature and said to them:
'The national Government has failed to protect Massachu-
setts from invasion or attack ; we must henceforth look to
God and ourselves.' He more than hinted that the time had
come for separate New England alliances."

"The Boston Centinel declared tl.c Union was as good
as dissolved."

"The very day that dispatches from Ghent announced the
peace proposals of England, the Massachusetts Legislature
issued a call for a conference of New Er^^land States to be
held at Hartford. Connecticut and Rhode Island promptly

Chap. 19 Facts and Falsehoods. 129

responded. The Boston Centinel spoke of Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Rhode Island as the first three pillars in a
new Federal edifice. It was proposed to make a special and
separate treaty of peace with England. In the conference at
Hartford there were thirty-six delegates, representing not
only the three States named, but parts of Vermont and New
Hampshire. Governor Morris wrote:

"If not too tame and timid, you will be hailed hereafter
as the patriots and sages of your generation."

"It was proposed in the Hartford convention that New
England should create State armies for self-defense."

"The Massachusetts Legislature, in session at Boston,
passed a resolution to send a delegation to demand the taxes,
as proposed by the Hartford convention. Governor Strong
undertook at once to raise a State army and in every way
to create an independent commonwealth. It was proposed to
seize the national taxes. At the same time Massachusetts
refused to co-operate with the Union Government in driving
the British from Maine."

"Jack.son reached New Orleans in time. He swept
hindrances out of the way with a high hand, and then nearly
annihilated the British. The victory was complete. Mean-
while at Ghent had been signed the most extraordinar-
treaty England ever executed. Beginning with high and
lofty demands, her commissioners had been crowded by the
Americans to yield at one point and another until we had
won a triumph of diplomacy greater than our triumphs at
arms.

"The points first demanded by England were that Amer-
ica must yield all the Northwest, including >Tichigan, Wis-
consin, Illinois, a larsre part of Indiana, and one-third of
Ohio, as a perpetual Indian Territory, a barrier between Can-
ada and the United States ; that we must renounce our right
to keep armed vessels on the lakes or military posts on the
shores, and thirdly, we must relinquish a considerable portion
of Maine to be British property. These terms the members
of the Hartford convention and the foremost men of New
England declared were just and liberal. The rest of the
States indignantly spurned the proposals. Adams wrote to
Madison to continue the war forever rather than yield one
acre of territory or the fisheries or impressments.

"New England, by election, resolutions and conventions,

130 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 19

had declared all the British demands were just, and to grant
thern would be political wisdom.

"Peace was declared, but not one single British demand
had been yielded. The war had been fought under terrible
disadvantages (fought by Democrats drawn from the South
and West), but it had accomplished more permanent ad-
vantages to civilization than any other two years' war in
history. It made the oceans a vast republic. It established
the freedom of the seas. It established the great doctrine of
individual rights." — Powell's Nulhfication and Secession.

Of Massachusetts' treacherous course Jefferson wrote to
General Dearborn: "Oh Massachusetts! how have I lament-
ed the degradation of your apostacy — Massachusetts, with
whom I worked with pride in 1776! If her humiliation can
just give her modesty enough to suppose that her Southern
brethren are somewhat on a par with her in wisdom, in infor-
mation, in patriotism, in bravery, even in honesty, she will
more justly estimate her relative momentum in the Union."

For Massachusetts, modesty was not possible. Too long she
had been teaching herself that she was the most virtuous and
intellectual State in the Union, if not in the world. Even in her
youth she had conceitedly drawn close about her a robe of self-
righteousness and said to the South and West, "Stand back ! I
am holier than thou."

New England had so long calumniated Southern people,
calumniation had become a sort of craze with her. It is quite
possible that she had come to believe her own falsehoods. While
using slavery as a weapon to beat down the Union, the people of
the South, the Democratic party she hated, now and then she
managed to get possession of some negro, who may or may not
have been cruelly abused by his master, and she made use of that
negro to charge every man and woman in the South with cruelty.

It never occurred to her to remember that as good a charge
of cruelty could be brought against every husband in America
because now and then some husband cruelly abused his wife, beat
or choked her to death. Even in 1796, while still engaged in the
slave traffic, while still bringing cargoes of negroes from Africa
and sending them South to be sold to rice and cotton planters,
this self-righteous New England had the gall to proclaim the ly-
ing charge that the people of the South were barbarians, were a

Chap. 20 Facts and Falsehoods. 131

"race of demons," and would "enjoy killing and eating negroes
if they liked the taste of black flesh" — eating negroes they, the
pious Puritans of New England, had stolen from Africa and
brought to this Western continent!

CHAPTER XX.

New England's Three Hates Still Active. The Republican Party
is Organised, 1854. Republican Historians not Trustworthy.
Ambassador Choate bears False Witness. Senator Sumner's
Curious Lapse. A Few Facts Uncovered.

Notwithstanding all the evidence we have given, and as much
more staring the seeker of historic truth in the face, it now suits
Republican writers to assert that the people of the Northern
States always had held that secession is a political crime, always
had abhorred disunion, always had felt that a higher allegiance
was due to the Union Government than to that of their own States.
Republicans persist in the assertion that South Carolina was
"the breeding place of secession and that secession was and is
a leprosy of the mind more loathsome than leprosy of the body."
In "Nullification and Secession" the author makes the statement
that—

"From the day of our great victory over Great Britian,
in 181 5, New England became among the faithful most faith-
ful to the Union."

On what evidence Mr. Powell based this statement does not
appear ; it certainly is far from fact. New England continued to
*hold her three hates, each one as strong, black and bitter, as be-
fore the war of 1812. Her hate of the Union had not for a
moment ceased or softened ; her hate of Democracy and of the
people of the South because they were Democrats was as unre-
lenting as ever ; her desire to sever the Union was as strong as
ever. New England experienced no change of heart, as will be
seen from the extracts I shall now lay before the reader. Ample
proof exists that New England was as eager as ever for disunion.
On the 24th of February, 1842, John Quincy Adams presented
A petition in the House of Representatives, signed by a largt
number of citizens of Haverhill, Mass., for a peaceable dissolution
of the Union, assigning as one of the reasons the inequality of
benefits conferred upon the different sections.

See Blake's History of Slavery, page 524.

And Carpenter's Logic of History, page 26.

132 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 20

"On the 28th of February, 1842, Mr. Joshua R. Gid-
dings, member of Congress from Ohio, presented a petition
from a large number of citizens of Austinburg in his district,
praying for a dissokition of the Union. Mr. Triplett of Ken-
tucky, who considered the petition disrespectful to both
Houses, moved that it be not received. Ayes 24 for reception.
Noes 116." (See Blake's History of Slavery, page 529.)

The following extract, page 145, from one of a series of
pamphlets issued for circulation in Massachusetts in 1852, shows
New England's unabated animosity to the Union :

"Fidelity to the cause of human freedom and allegiance
to God require that the existing national compact should be
instantly dissolved ; that secession from the Government is a
religious and a political duty."

In another paragraph of this same paper is the following em-
phatic declaration: "To continue this disastrous alliance longer is
madness." In 1854 the dismembered Federals of New England and
the disorganized Whigs united and lormed the Republican party.
These old disunionists rmder their new name took up the fight
on the three objects of New England's hate — Democracy, the
Union and the South — exactly where the Federals had ceased their
open fight in 181 5. So far from New England's sentiments
having softened since that time, her three hates, under the lead of
Republicans, assumed the force and fury of insanity, as may be
seen in reports of speeches, sermons and lectures. Men of New
England who emigrated West carried with them all three hates,
and when the Republican party was organized they made haste to
enter its ranks and take up the work of disunion and secession.
These men of the new party possessed more zeal, more audacity,
more duplicity and less candor than their progenitors, the Fed-
erals. These latter had always fought Democracy in the open ;
the more astute Republicans saw that they could never win the
suffrages of the common people if they exposed their imperialistic
features, therefore from the day of their organization they fought
behind a mask. The Republican party never at any period took
the people into their confidence. But they affected high moral
ideas and benevolent principles, which won many to their ranks.
The old Federals had always spoken of negroes in contemptuous
terms. Republicans saw what an engine of power they could
make of slavery to batter, beat down and cover with false charges
and malignant calumnies the three objects of their hatred, and

Chap. 20 Facts and Falsehoods.

133

most effective use they made of that engine. They either forgot or
ignored the fact that their own New England States were chiefly
responsible for the existence of that black curse on this Western
continent. Men of Massachusetts scrupled at no subterfuge, no
deception, no falsehood, in efforts to make the world believe their
own States were and ever had been free from the sin of slavery.
They pushed back out of sight the hideous fact that Massachu-
setts men had built ships and sent them to Africa to bring back
cargoes of negroes, which they sold either in the West Indies, the
Bermudas or to Southern planters. The dreadful word, "Middle
Passage," with all its horrors, was seldom or never uttered or
written by a Massachusetts man. Men of New England affected
to believe only the Southern States were guilty of the sin of
slavery. Lecturers, historians and senators joined in this decep-
tive work, and to this day falsehoods are told on this subject. In-
stance the address delivered by Ambassador to England Choate
a few months ago to the Philosophic Society of Edinburg, Scot-
land. Branching off from the main line of his address. Ambassa-
dor Choate seized the occasion to enlighten the members of that
philosophical society on the subject of slavery in America.

''Negro slavery," said the Ambassador, "was firmly estab-
lished in the Southern States at an early period of their his-
tory. In 1619 a Dutch ship discharged a cargo of African
slaves at Jamestown, Virginia. All through the colonial
period their importation continued. A few negroes found
their way up into the Northern States."

This is the way New England men "make and take their
history." "A few negroes found their zvay up into the Northern
States," and this from a descendant of Puritans who carried on
the slave traffic, importing negroes from Africa for over a hun-
dred years. The careful way Ambassador Choate phrases his
sentences to make them bear false witness is something to wonder
at, and the dishonesty involved is something to blush for. What
are the plain facts of history?

A Dutch ship did stop at Jamestown in 161 9 and leave, not
a cargo, but eleven slaves, not one of which remained on Virginia
soil. Those eleven negro slaves had been brought from the Earl
of Warwick's plantation, on the Isle of Summers, one of the Ber-
mudas. Their owner, the Earl of Warwick, had them carried
back as soon as possible to his plantation on the Isle of Summers.

If the importation of negroes continued all during the colo-
nial period. New England ships carried on that importation, and

134 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 20

New England State kept up that importation until the year 1808.
Massachusetts went into the slave traffic as early as 1637. Chief
Justice Parsons declared from the bench that —

"Slavery was introduced into Massachusetts soon after
its first settlement."

Is it possible that Ambassador Choate is ignorant of these
facts ?

George H. Moore, L. L. D., librarian of the New York His-
torical Society, afterwards superintendent of the Lenox Library,
in "Notes on History of Slavery in Massachusetts," says :

"I charge nearly all the orators, historians, lawyers,
clergymen and statesmen of Massachusetts with either igno-
rance of the facts of history or evading and falsifying them."

Mr. George W. Williams, Judge Advocate of the Grand
Army of the Republic of Ohio, in his "History of the Negro Race
in America," calls attention to the above charges of Mr. Moore
and comments thus :

"Despite the indisputable evidence of the legalized exist-
ence of slavery in Massachusetts, the historians, lawyers,
clergymen, orators and statesmen of New England continue
to assert that slavery, though it did creep into the colony of
Massachusetts and did exist, it was not by force of any law,
as none such is known to have existed."

Moore says : "Massachusetts' first code of laws established
slavery in that colony, and, at the very birth of the foreign
commerce of New England, the African slave trade became a
regular business."

Yet in spite of indisputable evidence, showing that New
England from 1637 to 1808 was actively engaged in the slave
traffic, and that New England ships brought over cargoes of ne-
groes from Africa, discharged those left alive from the horrors
of the "Middle Passage" at New England ports, there to recuper-
ate before sending them South to be sold to the cotton and rice
planters, in spite of all this evidence. Ambassador Choate had the
hardihood to represent to his Scotch audience that the Northern
States were guiltless of the sin of slavery, and only a "fetv negroes
found their zvay up to Northern States." On June 28, 1854,
Charles Sumner, a son of Massachusetts, from the Senate floor,
made the false assertion that —

"In all her annals no person was ever born a slave on
the soil of Massachusetts."

I charge that men making such assertions were and are

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods. 135

either disgracefully ignorant of the facts of history or disgrace-
fully dishonest.

In Elliott's "Debates in the Convention of 1787," \^ol. I, pages
264-5, ^^y ^^ found the following story illustrative of Massachu-
setts character:

"The original committee of thirteen in 1787 recommend-
ed that the constitutional license to the slave traffic should
cease at the period of 1800."

This not suiting some of New England's States at that time
engaged in the slave traffic, it was moved and seconded to amend
the report of the committee of eleven, entered on the journal of
August 21, 1787, as follows:

"To strike out the words eighteen hundred and insert
the words eighteen hundred and eight."

• "This motion was seconded ; the vote stood as follows :
"Yeas — New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia."

"Nays — New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Vir-
ginia." (See Carpenter's Logic of History.)

By this it is seen that Massachusetts and two other New Eng-
land States, by their votes, procured the continuance of the dam-
nable slave traffic eight years longer than Virginia wanted it to
continue.

Dr. Dabney of Virginia states that it is estimated that in the
years from 1787 to 1808 new England's slave ships brought from
Africa and sold either to the South's planters or in the West
Indies one million slaves. Yet from that year, 1787, from the
very hour New England's three States voted to continue the slave
traffic, Massachusetts has held close about her her robe of self-
righteousness, scornfully saying to Virginia, "Stand back! I am
holier than thou!"

CHAPTER XXI.

Save the Union, Free Slaves the Pretext, Not the Purpose, of
the War on the South. Real Cause, Hatred of Democracy.
Mr. A. K. Fisk, a distinguished Republican, throws some
light on the relationship of the two parties, Hamilton's and
Jefferson's ; in other words, the party favoring Monarchy and the
party favoring Democracy, the rule of the people.

136 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

"Hamilton and Jefferson," says Fisk in the North Amer-
ican Reviezv of April, 1879, page 410, "represent the two
opposing ideas which prevailed at the time our Government
was formed, and which, with some variations, have been the
basis of our political divisions into parties ever since, and
have been involved in all the contests and controversies in
our constitutional career. Hamilton embodied the tendency
to a centralization of power in the national Government.
There is no doubt that he would have preferred a monarchy.
Jefferson, on the other hand, represented the demand for a
complete diffusion of sovereignty among the people, and its
exercise locally and in the States, and the confining of nation-
al functions as closely as possible under the most' restrictive
interpretation of the Constitution."

Mr. Fisk admits that Hamilton, the monarchist, represented
the party which opposed the sovereignty of the people. A writer
in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, a staunch advocate of Hamil •
ton's strong government doctrines, in that paper, March 6, 1898,
made this significant comment :

"The resemblance between Hamilton and Lincoln is so
close no one can resist it. Hamilton is dwarfed by no man.
A just parallel of Hamilton and Lincoln will show them
alike in many ways. They were alike almost to the point of
identity. Hamilton's work made Lincoln's possible."

Hamilton's monarchic principles certainly made Lincoln's
work possible. Lincoln put in practice what Hamilton had ad-
vocated. Hamilton made no concealment of his monarchic prin-
ciples ; he preferred a monarchy such as England has, but failing
that he wanted a President for life and the Governors of States
appointed by the President. Until seated in the White House,
Lincoln talked Democracy and affected great esteem for Jeffer-
son's Democratic principles.

As soon as he held in his grip the machinery of government,
he schemed for absolute power, and as soon as he was command-
er in chief of nearly 3,000,000 armed men, no imperial despot in
pagan time ever wielded more autocratic power than did Abraham
Lincoln, and Republican writers of today are so imbued with
imperialism they laud and glorify Lincoln for his usurpation of
power.

Although well informed Republicans know that the war on
the South was waged neither to save the Union nor to free
slaves, it does not suit that party to be candid on this subject.

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods. 137

Now and then, however, some Republican forgets the party's
policy of secrecy and tells the truth. That boldly imperialistic
Republican journal, the Globe-Democrat, of St. Louis, in its issue
of April 9, 1900, had an article which uncovers facts, even to the
foundation stones, on which rested the war of the 6o's. Consider
the following:

"Lincoln, Grant and the Union armies gave a victory
to Hamiltonism (Monarchy) when it subjugated the Confed-
erates (Democrats) in the South. (This is strictly true; it
was a victory over Democracy by Monarchy.) The cardi-
nal doctrines of Democracy are the enlargement of the power
of the States. All the pridigious energies of the war could
not extinguish these. The lesson of the war was extreme
and extraordinary, and yet in a sense ineffective."

Ineffective, because it did not crush out the very Hfe of
Democracy. Monarchists always appear to be ignorant of the
fact that there is a streak of divinity in Democracy which can not
be killed. Monarchy a thousand and ten thousand times has
fancied it has forever put an end to Democracy, but sooner or
later it rises up, fronts and fights for the rights of humanity with
all its power.

"The Democrats," continues theGlobe-Democrat, "have
been since the war more strenuous than before in insisting
on the preservation of the power of the States."

The cardinal doctrine of the Democratic party has not been,
since the formation of the Union, the enlargement of State power,
but has been the preservation of the power reserved to the
States by the Constitution. The cardinal power of the Repub-
lican party, since the day Mr. Lincoln assumed the Presidency, has
been the enlargement of executive power. No well-informed
man can deny this.

"If there was no absurd sentiment," says the Globe-Dem-
ocrat, "about the privileges of the States there would be no
campaign on imperialism."

Had there been no absurd "sentiment" about human freedom
in 1776 there would have been no campaign against the English
King.

"Back of all opposition," continues the Globe-Democrat,
"to imperialism, whatever form it takes, is the old doctrine

138 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

that the rights reserved by the Constitution to the States are
heing invaded."

This is strctly true. What shadow of right had or has im-
periaHsts to encroach on the rights reserved by the Constitution
to the States? Such encroachment is an audacious usurpation of
power and a dishonest violation of the original contract between
the States and the Federal Union.

"The old Federals," says the Globe-Democrat, "fought
it (Democracy) valiantly, but it was reserved for the Repub-
lican party to conquer it."

Had the Republican party fought in the open, as did the
old Federals, it never would have defeated Democracy. Had it
fought in the open, exposing its monarchic principles, the people
of the Northern States never would have aided it to crush and
conquer Democracy. From its birth in 1854, the Republican party
has fought behind a mask. Its imperial features have never been
uncovered and exposed to the people's gaze. It has ever posed
before the people as the champion of the people's rights.

The following extracts, mostly taken from S. D. Carpenter's
Logic of History, show New England's continued hate of the
Union. In Massachusetts' State convention, 1851, it was —

"Resolved, That the one issue before the country is dis-
solution of the Union, in comparison with which all other
issues are as dust in the balance ; therefore, we have given
ourselves to the work of annulling this covenant with death."
In 1856 Lloyd Garrison in a speech loudly declared:

"I have said, and I say again, that in proportion to the
growth of disunion will be the growth of the Republican
cause. This Union is a lie!"

James S. Pike, appointed Minister to the Netherlands, said :

"This Union is not worth supporting in connection with
the South."

Frederick Douglas, half negro, half white, a great man in
the Republican party, in a speech said :

"From this time forth I consecrate the labor of my life
to the dissolution of the Union, and I care not whether the
bolt that rends it shall come from heaven or from hell!"

Loud and long applause.

These were the sentiments, so far as I can learn, of every
man in the Republican party.

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods.

139

The Rev. Andrew T. Foss, at a meeting in New York, May
15th, 1857, said:

"There never has been an hour when this infamous Union
should have been made, and now the hour has to be prayed
for when it shall be dashed to pieces forever! I hate the
Union !"

In 1850 Wm. Lloyd Garrison, in a speech, shouted out with
p^reat vehemence :

"A thousand times accursed be this Union !"
Eli Thayer, in "Kansas Crusade," says :

"These men of New England were the original seces-
sionists. They had advocated secession and dissolution of
the Union for twenty years before Jefferson Davis put those
doctrines in practice."

Mr. Thayer makes a mistake by fully forty years. The men
of New England first, as Federalists, had preached disunion and
secession from 1796 up to the very hour the Republican party
took up the work in 1854. The reader must not lose sight of the
fact that th^ Republican party is the legitimate offspring of the
Federals, and had inherited all its progenitor's faiths, ambitions
and hates.

The genesis is straight, as follows :

Federals in 1796 — 1804 — 1814.

Federal-Republican ip 1824.

Republican in 1854.

Union-Republican from the beginning of the war to its
close.

In 1855 Senator Wade of Ohio, at a mass meeting in Maine,
in a grand passion of scorn and hate of the Union, threw his arms
out wide and shouted:

"Let us sweep away this remnant which we call a
Union."

In another speech Wade cried out :

"After all this talk of a Union you have no Union worthy
the name."

After the first State had seceded, Wendell Phillips cired out
rapturously :

'"Disunion is the sweetest music! What if a State has no
right to secede ? Of what consequence is that? A Union is
made up of willing States, not «f conquerors and conquered.
Confederacies invariably tend to dismemberment. The

140 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

Union was a wall built up hastily; its cement has crumbled
hastily. Why should we seek to stop seceded States ? Merely
to show we can? Let the South go in peace."

Alas! Alas! This just spirit did not remain with Phillips. Did
the smell of blood from battlefields gangrene his mind and heart ?
As the war went on there came times when Mr. Phillips' hate of
the South seemed to hurt him so, he cried out in spasms of pain,
as when in a speech in Beecher's church his hate became so acute
and frenzied he demanded the exile or hanging at one fell swoop
of 347,000 men of the South. Before Phillips became poisoned by
the smell of blood he had boldly declared the South's right to
independence, right to secede, and as boldly had warned President
Lincoln that he had no right to send one armed man on the
South.

In another speech, full of insane hate of the South, Phillips
said:

"Washington was a sinner! It becomes an American
to cover his face when he places Washington's bust among
the great men of the world."

Redman, a friend and follower of Phillips, had &ie hate in-
sanity as badly as Phillips.

"And I," shouted Redman, "would like to spit on that
scoundrel, Washington."

It is quite possible that both these men had come to belie-ve
so strongly in their own self-righteousness as to think they hated
Washington because he had been a slave-holder. It never oc-
curred to them to remember the sins of their own Massachusetts
ancestors, their long continued traffic in slaves.

The True American, a Republican paper of Erie, Penn., said :
"All this twaddle about preserving the Union is too silly
and sickening for anything."

August 23d, 1 85 1, the New Hampton, Massachusetts, Ga-
zette announced that a petition was circulating in that region for
the dissolution of the Unon, and that more than one hundred and
fifty names of legal voters had signed it. In 1854 New England
sent to Congress a petition, numerously signed, praying for the
dissolution of the Union, using these words :

"We earnestly request Congress to take measures for
the speedy, peaceful and equitable dissolution of the Union."

In 1854 John P. Hale, Chase and Seward voted to receive
and consider a petition demanding the dissolution of the Union.

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods. . 141

These three men had long been anxious to break the Union to
pieces.

In 1848 Seward voted to receive a petition to dissolve the
Union, yet Seward was the man who urged Lincoln to begin war,
on the pretext of saving the Union. In 1857 a meeting was held
in Massachusetts, during which the question of war on the South
was discussed. Gerritt Smith, an ardent disunion Republican.
said :

"The time has not yet come to use physical force on the
South."

Mr, Langdon of Ohio in a speech said:

"Why preserve the Union? It is not worth preserving.
I hate the Union as I hate hell!"

Carpenter's Logic of History says in 1852 a series of pam-
phlets were issued advocating disunion, from which is taken the
following :

"To longer continue this disastrous alliance (the Union)
is madness. Allegiance to God and fidelity to the cause of
freedom requires that the national compact shall be in-
stantly dissolved. Secession from the Government is a relig-
ious and political duty."

Joshua R. Giddings, one of the Republican great men, in 1848
introduced a petition for the dissolution of the Union. Mr. Lin-
coln appointed INIr. Giddings Consul to the Canadas.

Anson Burlingame so hated the Union and the Constitution
he declared publicly that "we needed disunion, we needed a new
Constitution, a new Bible, and a new God." Mr. Lincoln was so
pleased with Mr. Burlingame he sent him Minister to China, at
the same time pretending to look on disunion as the most mon-
strous crime a people can commit, and to punish which he was
devastating the South with an army of over 2,000,000 men.

At a Republican convention, held at Monroe, Green county,
Wisconsin, in 1856, the following resolution was passed:

"Resolved, That it is the duty of the North, in case we
fail in electing a President and Congress that will restore
freedom to Kansas, to revolutionize the Government."

The Boston Liberator had an article headed in large type :

"But one issue! The dissolution of the Union," and
urges the people to get up monster petitions to Congress for
dissolution of the Union." (See Carpenter's Logic of His-
tory.)

'4> Facts and Falskhoods. Chap, 21

III his liobato. 1S5S, with Parson Pryiic. l\irsoii Hrownlow, a
red hot Republican, said :

"A dissohitioti of the I'liion is what a large portion of
the Republieans are driving- at."

In 1S55, ^"^"ly ^^"^^ ><-"'^'" fitter the Republican party was or-
g-anized. Senator Wade, of Ohio, in a speech made in' I'ortland.
Maine, said :

"There is really no Union now between the North and
the Sotith. I believe no two nations on earth entertain feel-
ings of more bitter rancor toward each other than these two
j)eoplcs."

Wni. Lloyd Garrison said:

"The Republican party is moulding public sentiment in
the right direction for the dissolution of the Union."

Charles Sumner was heart and soul a disunionist. In 1854,
September 7th. at Worcester. -Massachusetts, in a speech Sumner
said :

"The whole dogiua of passive obedience to law must be
rejected, in whatever guise it may assume and under what-
ever alias it may skulk, whether in the tyranny and usurpation
of king, parliament or judicial tribunal."

On November 2d, 1S59, in a speedi made in Brooklyn, Wen-
dell Phillips made the following remarkable assertion:

"\irg-inia is not a State! Mr. Wise is not a Governor!
The Union is not a nation ! All these so-called Governments
are organized piracies." (, Logic of History, page 68.)

The New York HcraUi of December, 1859. gives an account
of a Republican meeting in Tremont Temple. Boston. The Hon.
John Andrews, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, said:

"The logic of bayonets and rifles and pikes will be hence-
forth used against the South."

Emerson, the so-called New England philosopher, was at
tliat meeting and said :

"We must go back to the original form ; in other words,
go back to the original right of resistance and revolution,
and nullify the Constitution and the laws."

General Jamison, on January 22, 1S62, made a speech to his
soldiers, which was published in the Leavenworth Constrzatne,
in which he said :

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehckjds.

M3

"This is a war which dates way back of Fort Sumt'^r ;
ever since 1854 we have been making' the lonj^ campaign."
The Repubhcan party was or^^anized in 1854. General Jam-
ison's knowledge of New England's history did not go back of
that tlate ; he knew, as Wendell Phillips had proclaimed, that the
Republican party was org^anized to work against the South, but
apparently did not know that party merely took up the warfare
its progenitors, the Federals, had been waging against the South
since the year 1796.

On December 25, i860, in the United States Senate, Stephtm

Douglas said :

"The fact can no longer be disguised that many
Republican Senators desire war and disunion under pretense
of saving the Union. For partisan reasons they are anxious
to destroy the Union. They want this done without holding
them responsible before the people."

The Boston CommonzL-ealth, Senator Sumner's organ, said :

"How dare any one pray for the preservation of that sin

and shame, the Union?"

In another issue that organ said :

"Unity of the States is a crime ! May the tongue wither
that prays for the preservation of that festering shame,
the Union."

In a convention held in Massachusetts in 1856, a series of re>-
olutions were passed, of which the following are samples :

"Resolved, ist. That the necessit^"^ of disunion is writ-
ten in the whole existing character and condition of the two
sections of the countrj'. No government on earth is strong
enough to hold together such opposing forces."

The Roman Empire's government was strong enough to hold
together for years, yet in time it broke to pieces. This imperial
republican government sooner or later will do the same. The
second resolution of that convention is as follows :

"Resolved, 2d, That this movement does not merely seek
disunion, but the expulsion by the Northern States from the
Union of the Southern States. The one great issue before the
country is the dissolution of the Union, in comparison with
which all other issues are as dust in the balance; therefore
we devote ourselves to the work of annulling this covenant
with death."

144 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

So long had the gospel of hate been preached, those New
Englanders had come to hate the South so venomously they
wanted to force her out of the Union she loved. Yet, when a
few years later the Southern people left the Union, driven to
secede by the unrelenting persecution of New England, these very
people of New England called her secession a crime and waged
upon her bloody war for doing what they had invited her to do,
as will be seen from this item.

In 1859, at a Republican convention in New York, the follow-
ing resolution was unanimously passed:

"Resolved, That we invite a free correspondence with the
disunionists of the South, in order that we may decide upon
the most suitable measures to bring about so desirable a re-
sult."

The New York Tribune, a Republican paper, edited by Hor-
ace Greeley, native of New England, said :

"Who wants a Union which is nothing but a sentiment to
lacquer Fourth of July orations withal? We have no wish
for its preservation."

At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, January 2, 3, 4, 1854,

it was —

"Resolved, That we seek the dissolution of this Union,
and that we hereby declare ourselves the friends of a new
Confederacy of States, and for a dissolution of the Union."

Wm. Lloyd Garrison, a son of New England, a great man
in the Republican party, in a speech to a large audience cried
aloud :

"If the church is against disunion, I pronounce the
church of the devil ! Up with the flag of disunion !"

In a speech made May, 1858, in New York city, Wendell
Phillips declared that for the last nineteen years he had labored to
get sixteen States out of the Union. When in 1856, February 25th,
a friend said to Senator Hale, he was certain there would ere long
be war with the South, Hale, eager for war, rubbed his hands and
gleefully said:

"Good ! Good ! War can't come to soon."

The reader will observe that these Republicans were as anx-
ious for a war on the South as their progenitors, the Federals,
had been. In 1856, Banks of Massachusetts, in a speech at Port-
land, Maine, said :

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods.

145

"I am not one who cries for the perpetuation of the
Union, I am wilHng to let it slide."

Yet while Banks' party was drenching the Southland with
blood and filling- all the country, North and South, with mourning,
under pretense of saving a Union it long had despised, this same
Banks, with a general's epaulets on his shoulders, marched at the
head of armed legions on the South to assist in the murderous
work. In 1857, in the fair month of May, the Rev. Andrew
Forbes shouted out:

"There never was an hour when this blasphemous and

infamous Union should have been made ; now the hour must
be prayed for when it will be dashed to pieces."

Does this evidence manifest any change of heart in New
England ? Had she come to hate Democracy less ? Had she come
to hate the Union less? The South less? Was she any better
satisfied to remain in the Union ? Any less anxious to break it to
pieces? Had she ceased to believe in State's sovereignty? In the
right of States to secede ? Yet, in the face of the above evidence,
Mr. E. P. Powell calmly announces that after "New England's
shameless conduct during the second war with Great Britain she
became of the faithful the most faithful to the Union."

Was Mr. Powell afraid to tell the plain truth?

A few extracts from the utterances of distinguished Repub-
licans will show how they hated and detested the United States
Constitution.

In a speech to a large audience, Wendell Phillips cried out :

"The Constitution is a mistake ! Tear it to pieces ! Our

aim is disunion !"

Hincle, a RepubHcan speaker, cried out in high scorn :

"The United States Constitution ! I would blow it away
as a child blows a feather!"

At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, January 23d, 1850, it was —

"Resolved, That we seek a dissolution of the Union ; and
Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves the enemies of
the Constitution, of the Union, and of the Government of the
United States ; and Resolved, That we proclaim it as our un-
alterable purpose and determination to live and labor for
the dissolution of the present Union."

The Boston Daily Mail, the New York Independent, the
New York Herald, the Boston Times, and other papers, reported

146 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

these meetings and the speeches ; some papers condemned, some
gibed, some called the speakers foolish fanatics, and dismissed
the whole proceeding as absurd, but, so far as I can discover, not
a paper called these men rebels, traitors, or their teachings trea-
son.

At a meeting in Boston, May, 1849, Wendell Phillips blazed
out in these words :

"We confess that we intend to trample on the Constitu-
tion of this country. We of New England are not a law-abid-
ing community. God be thanked for it ! We are disunionists ;
we want to get rid of this Union." (Democratic Handbook,
page J2.)

At South Farmington, on July 5th, 1854, the United States
Constitution was publicly burned.

Mr. Seward despised the Constitution and called it a paper
kite.

Beecher jeeringly called the Constitution a sheep-skin Govern-
ment.

May 16, 1863, resolutions passed by the Essex County mass-
meeting contained this :

"Resolved, That the war prosecuted to preserve a Union
and a Constitution which should never have existed and
which should be at once overthrown, is but a wanton waste
of property and a dreadful sacrifice of human life."

Horace Greeley said:

"All nations have their superstitions ; that of our people
is the Constitution."

Henry Ward Beecher said :

"A great many people raise a cry about the Union and
the Constitution. The truth is, it is the Constitution that is the
trouble ; the Constitution has been the foundation of our
trouble."

The Boston Liberator, April 24, 1863, said:

"No act of ours do we regard with higher satisfaction
than when several years ago, on the 4th of July, in the pres-
ence of a great assembly, we committed to the flames the Con-
stitution of the United States and burned it to ashes."

During Garfield's campaign, that outspoken Republican
paper, the Lemars (la.) Sentinel, voiced Republican principles as
follows :

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods. 147

"The Stalwarts do not care a fig for the Constitution, and
will trample it under foot today as did Lincoln and the Union
hosts from '61 to '65.

"The Constitution of the United States has been little
beside a curse and a hindrance. It is so today as much as
it has been at any time since it was framed. It is the barrier
now to the pathway of the nation."

The Wakefield (Kansas) Semi-Weekly, a Republican paper,
in August, 1880, wanted to destroy the Constitution,

"Let us," (said the Semi-Weekly) "tear up the present
Constitution by the roots, wipe out the same and the laws
and so-called Constitutions of every State in this Union. Let
the Stalwarts now make their grand attack on the United
States Senate, which is the bulwark of State sovereignty."

Seward despised the Constitution, but was careful not to
proclaim it to the people. Seward said to General Piatt :

"We are all bound by tradition to the tail end of a
paper kite called the Constitution. It is held up by a string."

"Why, Mr. Senator," said Piatt, in some heat, "you don't
believe that of our Constitution?"

"I certainly do," replied Seward, "but I generally keep
it to myself. Our Constitution is to us of the North a great
danger. The Southerners are using it as a shield."

The Constitution was a shield on which the South relied, but
the Republican party overwhelmed the people who held that
shield before their breasts ; seized that shield, dashed
it on the ground and trampled it down in the bloody mire of
battlefields. Lincoln, like all Republicans had no respect for the
Constitution, but Lincoln was always tou shrewd a lawyer to make
public his real opinions. General Piatt relates the following storj,
which illustrates Lincoln's want of reverence for the Constitution.
When Amasa Walker, a distinguished New England financier,
thought of a scheme by which could be filled the Government
treasury, Mr. Davis Tailor went to Secretary Chase and laid be-
fore him Amasa Walker's scheme. Chase heard him to the end
and then said :

"That is all very well, Mr. Tailor, but there is one little

obstacle in the way which makes the plan impracticable, and

that is the United States Constitution."

Mr. Tailor then went to President Lincoln and laid the matter
before him.

148 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

"Tailor," said Lincoln, "go back to Chase and tell him
not to bother himself about the United States Constitution.
Say that I have that sacred instrument here at the White
House, and I am guarding it with great care."

Chase, Tailor and Lincoln then held a conference. Chase
explained how the scheme to raise money was a violation of the
Constitution. Lincoln, after his usual habit, swept away Chase's
statement of facts by a story :

"Chase," said Lincoln, "down in IlHnois I was held to be
a pretty good lawyer ; now this thing reminds me of a story.
An Italian captain run his vessel on a rock and knocked a
hole in her bottom. He set his men to pumping and went
to prayers before a figure of the Virgin Mary in the bow of
the ship. The leak gained on them until it looked as if the
vessel would go down with all on board. Then the captain,
in a fit of rage at not having his prayers answered, seized the
figure of the Virgin Mary and threw it overboard. Suddenly
the leak stopped, the water was pumped out and the vessel
got safely into port. When docked for repairs the statue of
the Virgin Mary was found stuck head foremost in the hole."

Chase, who never liked Lincoln's stories, told the President
he did not see the application of the story.

"Why, Chase," returned Lincoln, "I didn't intend pre-
cisely to throw the Virgin Mary overboard — by that I mean
the Constitution — But I will stick it into the hole if I can."
And he did stick it in the hole. The Iowa editor told the
tale more tersely, when he admiringly said :

"Abraham Lincoln kicked the Constitution into the
Capitol cellar, and there it remained innocuous until the war
ended."

When the bill for dismembering Virginia was up for consider-
ation Thaddeus Stevens gave vent to his respect for the Consti-
tution as follows :

"I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have
any warrant in the Constitution for this proceeding. This
talk of restoring the Union as it was under the Constitution
is one of the absurdities repeated until I have become sick of
it. This Union shall never be restored, with my consent,
under the Constitution as it is."

As its progenitors, the Federals of 1796, had believed in the
right of secession, so did their legitimate offspring, the Repub-

Chap. 21 Facts and Falsehoods. 149

lican party, born in 1854, believe in secession from the day of
its birth. The highest orators of that party pubHcly declared such
belief. Even before the organization of the Republican party, Mr.
Lincoln proclaimed his faith in the right of secession. On the
13th day of January, 1848, from the floor of Congress, Mr. Lin-
coln declared for the right of States to secede from the Union.

"Any people anywhere," said Mr. Lincoln, "being in-
clined and having the power, have the right to rise up and
shake off the existing government and to form one that
suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in
which the people of an existing government may choose to
exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may make
their own of such territory as they inhabit. More than this,
a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize,
putting down a minority intermingling with or near them
who oppose their movements. — Appendix to Congressional
Globe, 1st Session 30th Congress, page 94.

These words ring with the spirit of 1776. The South's seces-
sion fulfilled every requirement laid down by Lincoln. The South
had the right and she exercised it with decency and dignity. She
did not rise up and shake off the Union Government in a turbulent
manner ; she quietly withdrew. She did not. as New England did
in 1 814, select a time to withdraw when it might endanger the
Union. She bade her old political associates a sorrowful farewell.
She assured them of her desire to remain at peace, and respect-
fully asked them to make a just settlement of their partnership
affairs. Buchanan received those overtures in a friendly spirit ;
so did the great body of the North's people. How did Lincoln
receive them? For six weeks Lincoln and Seward pursued an
ambiguous, deceitful course ; they did not take the people of the
North into their confidence ; they strove to deceive ; they made
speeches now looking toward war, now toward peace. Lincoln
afterward said the hardest work he ever did was making these
speeches intended to deceive. Not until Lincoln was ready to
strike the first blow of war did he cry out to the South, "Rebel !
Traitor !" When he called for 75,000 armed men on the pretense
of defending his Capitol, he falsely asserted and deceived the
people of the North into the belief that the South was eager for
war, and intended to invade the North. Lincoln's war on the
South began with falsehoods and was run on falsehoods to the
bitter end.

ISO

Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 21

In the court of posterity how will this dissimulation be

judged?

In "Recollections of Lincoln" Lamon says of his journey

from Springfield to Washington :

"Mr. Lincoln's speeches were the absorbing topic of
the hour. The people everywhere were eager to hear a
forecast of his policy, and he was eager to keep silence. After
having been en route a day or two he told me he had done
much hard work in his life, but to make speeches day after day
with the object of speaking and saying nothing, was the
hardest work he had ever done." — Lamon's Recollections of
Lincoln, page 34.

At no period of Mr. Lincoln's presidency was he candid and

sincere to the people. It was his nature to trick and deceive.

Imperial Republicans of to-day laud and admire this trait in his

character. They praise his ability to use the fox's skin when the

lion's was too short.

Senator Wade of Ohio was one of the highest lights in the

Republican party. Wade, as emphatically as Lincoln had done,

declared the right of secession, December 4th, 1856, from the

Senate floor Senator Wade of Ohio proclaimed the South's right

to secede as follows :

"I am not one," said Senator Wade, "to ask the South to
continue in such a Union as this. It would be doing violence
to the platform of the party to which I belong. We have
adopted the old Declaration of Independence as the basis
of our political movement, which declares that any people,
when their government ceases to protect their rights, have
the right to recur to original principles, and if need be to
destroy the government under which they live, and to erect
on its ruins another conducive to their welfare. I hold that
the people of the South have this right. I will not blame
any people for exercising this right whenever they think the
contingency has come. You can not forcibly hold men in
the Union, for the attempt to do so would subvert the first
principles of the Government under which we live. — Con.
Globe, 3d Session 34th Congress, page 25.

In all the long and woeful story of man's treachery to man
is there an instance of treachery blacker than this of which the
Republican party was guilty in the 6o's? For more than 60 years
that party, first as Federals then as Republicans, had preached
and prayed for secession, had urged the South to secede, had

Chap. 22 Facts and Falsehoods. 151

invited the South to aid it to break the Union asunder, had hated
and denounced the Union as a covenant with hell, yet, when at
last the Southern people, to escape the hate so long poured upon
them, peacefully, quietly withdrew from the Union, that same
Republican party turned on them with a fury, a vindictive ferocity,
a hellish animosity, not even savage and enraged tigers could
surpass.

CHAPTER XXII.

Republicans Ascend to Power. Lincoln and Scivard Make
Ambiguous Speeches. Webster Davis on the Atvful Car-
nage of the War. Seward's Remarkable Letter to Lincoln.
Nicolav and Hay Comment on Sezvard's Letter. A Moral
Pervert.

The reader must bear in mind that in i860 there were three
Presidential candidates in the field. Lincoln was a sectional can-
didate and a minority President. Of the 4,700,000 votes cast the
Republican party only got 1,850,000. Of these 1,850,000, the
greater number did not want Lincoln. Seward or Chase was
th.'ir leal choice. Lincoln had only been affiliated with th? party
two \ears. Eastern Republicans knew little if anythin,^ of L.in-
coln. What little they did know they did not like or adn;ire. It
was said at the time, and is still said by the knowing, that a
blunder of Thurlow Weed's lost the prize to Seward and threw it
at the feet of Lincoln. Hence during Lincoln's life Republicans
called h'm "His Accidency," not His Excellency. Holland's Life
of Lincoln, published 1865, seems to have been written to serve
two purposes; ist, to bolster up the apotheosis theory of Lin-
coln's divinity ; 2nd, to laud and glorify the Republican party.
Holland never permits a fact to stand in the way of any pretty or
pleasing falsehood he may wish to use, yet he sometimes records
facts worth remembering. Instance the following:

"During the first month of Lincoln's presidencv he was
Thronged with office .'cc-kers, and was holding protracted
Cabinet meetings. All these labors were performed with con-
sciousness that his nominal friends (men of his own party),
as well as the great majority of the people throughout the
Union, had not the slightest sympathy with him. There was
distraction even in his councils."

From this is seen that not only the great majority of the
people throughout the L^nion, but the men in Lincoln's own party,

152 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 22

even in his Cabinet, were opposed to Lincoln's war schemes.
McCkire, Greeley, Xicolay and Hay, and many other Republican
writers bear testimony to the almost universal opposition to war
in the Xorthem States. Lincoln and Seward for a time were the
only members of the Cabinet eager to begin war. During the first
month of Lincoln's presidency, after the Cabinet members dis-
covered that Lincoln was fixed in his detennination to begin war.
the question was discussed at what point should it begin. Seward
opposed beginning at Fort Sumter ; he wanted to strike the first
blow on the gulf at Pensacola.

Hapgood says the Xew York Tribune, New York Herald,
and many other papers representing different parties in the North-
ern States, as well as in the middle, in 2\Iassachusetts and Boston
itself, at first opposed war on the South, and boldly declared that
the South had acted on her rights. Hapgood seems to be ignorant
of the fact that the Republican part}- itself was a secession part}',
and for over t^venty years had zealously worked for disunion.

Chase said: "Dissolution of the L'nion is better than a
conflict. I will oppose any attempt to reinforce Sumter if it
means war."

Seward said in the Cabinet:

"Even preparation to reinforce will precipitate war."

Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy, was weak on this ques-
tion. Of all his Cabinet, Lincoln only found Blair in favor of re-
inforcing Sumter.

There was not a man in the Cabinet that did not know that
the attempt to reinforce Sumter would be the first blow of war.

A few blood-thirst>- leaders of the Republican part}- had
entered into a conspiracy to force war on the countrv- at any and
every cost, despite the opposition of the great majorit}' of people
in the Northern States, and despite the South's pleas for peace.

Februar}- 2d, 1861, Mr. Stephen Douglas, in a letter published
in the ^^lemphis Appeal, wrote of the Republican leaders as fol-
lows :

"They are bold, determined men. Thev are striving to
break up the Union under the pretense of preserving it.
They are struggling to overthrow the Constitution while
professing undying attachment to it, and a willingness to
make any sacrifice to maintain it. They are trying to plunge
the countr}- into a cruel war as the surest means of destroying
the Union upon the plea of enforcing the laws and protecting
public propert}\"

Chap. 22 Facts ant) F.^lsehoods. 153

Shortly after Douglas wrote the above letter. Senator Zack
Chandler of Michigan wrote a letter to Governor Austin Blair,
which proves the guilt}- conspiracy of the men determined on
war. Virginia had solicited a conference of States to see if some
plan could not be devised and agreed on to prevent war and save
the Union. Chandler wrote Governor Blair that he opposed the
conference, and no Republican State should send a delegate. He
implored Governor Blair to send stiff-backed delegates or none,
as the whole thing was against his judgment Chandler added
to his letter these sinister w^ords:

"Some of the manufacturing States think that a war
would be awful ; without a little blood-letting this Union will
not be worth a curse." — Carpenter's Logic of Histor}-, page

138.

Assistant Secretar\" of the Interior Webster Da\-is, in an
oration on Decoration Day at Arlington, said:

"Counting the men who fell in battles and received
wounds not mortal at the moment, but who died afterward
from these wounds. 700.000 soldiers who wore the blue died
of that awful war."

These 700.000 men in blue were sacrificed on the pretext of
defending the flag and sa\-ing the Union.

Both pretexts were impudent falsehoods. Not a man in the
Republican party respected the flag. Both union and flag were
scorned and hated by Republicans. The Xew York Tribune was
in the habit of adorning its columns with doggerel deriding the
flag. For example:

Tear down the flaimting lie ;

Half mast the stany flag :
Insult no sunny sky

Witli Hate's polluted rag.

Is. there a flag on earth worth the sacrifice of 700,000 lives,
to say nothing of the anguish of hearts left behind to mourn over
the sacrifice ?

No man acquainted with the history of the Republican party
can for one moment doubt tliat, from the day of its organization
in 1854 to the hour Fort Sumter was fired on. Republicans had
striven might and main to dissolve the Union. In \-iew of this
indisputable fact, what will Posterity think of the tricker>', the
cunning, tlie mean and base deception of Republican offi-
cials, who inaugurated and for four years waged the most cruel

154 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 22

war ever fought between English-speaking people on the flimsy
pretext of saving the Union?

During the first month of Lincoln's presidency he was busy
looking after office-seekers. Xot a step did he take toward war.
Seward, the man utterly callous to human suffering, became im-
patient to begin war, not only with the South, but with two Euro-
pean kingdoms as well. Tremendous war schemes brooded in
Seward's brain. Exulting in the possession of power, Seward was
eager to use it for the destruction and misery of his fellow-mortals.
At the end of the first month, unable longer to bear the quiet of
peace, Seward longed to plunge this country, as well as two
European countries, into a sea of human blood. To hurry up
Lincoln, Seward wrote a carefully prepared paper intended for
Lincoln's eye only. We give this singular document verbatim.
It was headed —

"Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration."

"First," wrote Seward, "we are at the end of a month's
administration and yet without a policy.

"Second. This, however, is not culpable, it has been un-
avoidable. The presence of the Senate with the need to
meet applications for patronage have prevented attention to
other and more gfrave matters.

"Third. Rut further delay to adopt and prosecute our
policy for both domestic and foreign affairs, would not only
bring scandal on the administration, but danger on the
country.

"Fourth. To do this we must dismiss the applicr^nts for
office, but, how? I suggest that we make the local appoint-
ments forthwith, leaving foreign or general ones for ulterior
and occasional action.

"Fifth. The policy at home. My system is built on this
idea as a ruling one, viz : That we must change the question
before the public from one upon slavery or about slavery,
to a question of Union or Disunion. In other words, from
what would be regarded as a party question, to one of Patriot-
ism or Union. The occupation and evacuation of Fort Sum-
ter although not in fact a slavery or party question is so re-
garded. Witness the temper manifested by the Republicans
of the Northern States, and by the LInion men in the South.
For the rest I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all
the Forts in the gulf, and have the Navy recalled from foreign

Chap. 22 Facts and Falsehoods. 155

stations to be prepared for a blockade. Put the Island of
Key West under martial law. This will raise distinctly the
question of Union or Disunion. I would maintain every fort
and Federal possession in the South. I would at once de-
mand explanations from France and Spain categorically. I
would demand explanations from Great Britain and Russia,
and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America,
to rouse a vigorous Continental spirit of Independence on
this continent against European intervention. And if satis-
factory explanations are not received from Spain and France,
I would convene Congress and declare war against them.
For this reason it must be somebody's business to pursue and
direct it incessantly. Either the President must do it and be
all the while actively in it, or devolve it on some member of
his cabinet. Once adopted debates must end and all agree
and abide. It is not my especial province, but I neither seek
to evade or assume responsibilitv.

"WM. H. SEWARD."

It does not appear that this letter of Seward's was ever laid
before the Cabinet. It does not appear that his proposal to pick
a quarrel with France and Spain, and make war on those two
countries as well as on the South, was ever discussed in the Cab-
inet. The evidence goes to show that Seward gave the letter to
Lincoln for his private consideration only, and that Lincoln said
nothing about it, but accepted the advice to drop their party's
issue. Slavery, and in its place put the issue. "Save the Union."
He rejected the advice to seek a quarrel with and make war on
France and Spain. No act of Lincoln's and Seward's lives shows
a more autocratic spirit than the way they turned down their
party's issue and set up an issue their party hated. Both Lincoln
and Seward were creatures of the Republican party, put in office
by Republican votes, yet in the very outset of their official career
they offered the grossest possible insult to that party by spurning
its most cherished issue, slavery, and putting in its place the
Union, a thing their party had ever despised, hated, and de-
nounced from a thousand rostrums.

In Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln, Vol. 3, page 440, we
find this comment on Seward's letter:

"On April ist, 1861, Seward made Lincoln a proposi-
tion to turn his back on the party which had put him into
office, and by certain arbitrary acts he would plunge the
country mto foreign wars, and asked Lincoln to invite him

156 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 22

(Seward) to manage all this, to bring on the wars and carry
them on."

Nicolay and Hay seemed to perceive something of the stu-
pendous crime and the egregious folly involved in Seward's prop-
osition to plunge the country into war with two unoffending
kingdoms of Europe, but neither of these two men seemed, even
dimlv to perceive the equally stupendous crime of forcing a con-
flict between the people of the Northern and the people of the
Southern States, both peoples at that time feeling kindly toward
each other, both anxious to avoid war, both loving peace, believing
there was no just cause for war. Nicolay and Hay were ready
enough to condemn Seward for inviting Lincoln to turn his back
on his party's isue, slavery, and to take up an issue, the Union,
which his party had hated from the day of its organization, but
not one word of blame have these two apotheosizing men for
Lincoln, who so readily accepted Seward's advice on the issue
question and his advice to begin war on the South, but rejected
the advice to pick a quarrel with and declare war on France and
Spain. Nicolay and Hay were two young men of Springfield,
Illinois, who, when Lincoln went to Washington city, accom-
panied him thither, and were Lincoln's private secretaries until
his death. In 1890, twenty-five years after Lincoln's death, these
two men jointly concocted ten large volumes, which they labeled
"The Life of Lincoln," and dedicated to Robert Lincoln, the dead
President's son. As the whole work seems to have been gotten
up under the influence of the apotheosis ceremony, more for the
purpose of glorifying the deified dead President than to show him
to the public as he was in life, a more appropriate title would be
A Ten Volume Monument to the Deified Lincoln.

The reader should here pause and carefully consider Sew-
ard's letter to Lincoln. Look at its items one by one, consider
the fact that Seward had long been an honored and trusted mem-
ber of the Republican party, whose votes had put him and Lin-
coln into power ; consider the fact that the darling desire of his
party had ever been to sever the Union in twain, that to free
slaves was its war cry, its hobby. Consider the insult to his
party, the treachery to party principles, the outrage to party feel-
ings, involved in Seward's proposal to cast aside as a useless rag
his party's banner blazoned with the mottoes they loved, "Free
Slaves ! Down with the Union !" and in their place put the motto,
"Save the Union !" A thing which stunk in their nostrils. Save
a thing they had ever hated? Save the thing whose destruction
they had prayed for, labored for, since their party's birth ? What

Chap. 22 Facts and Falsehoods. 157

induced Seward and Lincoln to take this ungrateful, this insulting
course toward their own party? The reasons are not hard to
find ; they lie on the surface, to be seen by all with eyes to set
and judgments to understand. Lincoln and Seward were of the
nature to revel in the use of power. To be commanders and dic-
tators of a great war would greatly enhance their power. Deter-
mined to make war, yet finding that the great body of the North-
ern people had set their faces as flints against a war based on
the slavery issue, these two men, the one keenly astute, the other
with a "cunning that was genius," both destitute of moral scru-
ples, both with hearts of stone, for one month pondered over the
situation. The people w^ould not support a war based on slavery ;
the problem they had to solve was by what means could they rouse
the peace-loving people of the North to the fury of war? They
saw but one way, and that was to turn their backs on their own
party, cast that party's issue to the dogs, set up the word "Union"
as a god to fight and die for, and make the Northern people be-
lieve the South intended a war of invasion on their States, on
their Union Government. Imperialists always look on the peo-
ple as sheep, to be deceived and driven. Alas ! in this case the
people were indeed deceived and driven into war, and 700,000
men who wore the blue were sacrificed on the altar of that false
god, the Union. The scheme was successfully carried out, the
people of the North were tricked, the people of the South forced
into war. In all the black history of man's treachery to man, I
know of nothing more damnable than this. The arguments Sew-
ard used in his letter to Lincoln are as foolish as they are false.

"Delay," wrote Seward, "to prosecute our policy (the
policy of war) will not only bring scandal on the adminis-
tration, but danger to the country."

As war is the greatest evil that can. befall a people, except
dishonor, how could delay in bringing that evil bring scandal
and danger? The scandal and danger was in bringing the zvar,
not in the delay of bringing it. Seward and Lincoln had not
been elected to bring war on the people ; the people did not want
war. From what source, then, could the danger come? Certainlv
not from the South. The South was pleading for peace. Se-
cession had been an accomplished fact for months before Lincoln
took his seat in the Presidential chair. There was not the faint-
est shadow of danger in that direction. Would the reader like
to understand the mental and moral traits of the man who wrote
that remarkable letter to Lincoln? General Piatt, a personal

158 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 22

friend and great admirer of Seward, in 1887 sketched his char-
acter thus :

"Seward begun life as a school teacher in the South.
He had been treated with condescending indifference by the
unenhghtened masters, which treatment he never forgot. ( Was
it spite that made Seward so vindictive toward the Southern
people?) "Seward," continued Piatt, "looked down on the
white men of the South in the same cynical way that he did
upon the slaves. He had no pity for the slaves, and no dis-
like for the master. He was a great favorite with the last
named. He had contempt for them, which he concealed as
carefully as he did his contempt for the United States Con-
stitution. Seward had trained himself to believe that world-
ly wickedness indicated ability. He thought to be bad was
to be clever. He thought that devotion to wine, women
and infidelity gave proof of superior intelligence. He affect-
ed a wickedness he did not feel, because such wickedness,
in his estimation, was good form."

In presenting to the public this picture of his friend, Gen-
eral Piatt seems to have had no suspicion that he was writing
down that friend as a moral degenerate, a mental pervert. No
mentally and morally sound man can possibly believe that "zvick-
edness indicates mental ability," or that "devotion to zvine, zvomen
and infidelity gives proof of a superior intelligence." Everyone
knows when men talk of devotion to wine and women they mean
devotion to drink and prostitutes, not to the honest wives, moth-
ers and daughters in the land. Yet to this moral degenerate,
this mental pervert. Lincoln delegated power as despotic as any
Bourbon King of old exercised over his subjects. Lincoln was
as eager for war on the South as Seward. He made haste to
drop the slavery issue and put in its place the Union. The old
leaders of the party were angry enough at this outrage to their
party's feelings and principles, and when Lincoln called for 75,000
men to fight for the Union, some of those leaders took the stump
and tried to prevent enlistments. Parker Pillsbury, in a speech,
said to young men :

"Recognize your own manhood ; your own divine
rights and destiny, and believe yourselves too sacred to be
shot down like dogs by Jeff Davis and his myrmidons ; die
rather at home in the arms of a loving mother and sisters.
Be shot down, if you must, at home; die like Christians, and

Chap. 23 Facts and Falsehoods. 159

have a decent burial, rather than go down and die in the
cause of a Union bhstered all over with the curses of God."

Wendell Phillips, speaking- of Lincoln, cried out in high
scorn :

"Who is this huckster in politics? Who is this county
court lawyer ?"

In another speech Phillips denounced the war and denounced

"That slave-hound from Illinois !"

In another speech Phillips denounced the war and denounced
Lincoln roundly.

"Here," cried Phillips, "are a series of States girding the
gulf which think they should have an independent gov-
ernment; they have a right to decide that question without
appealing to you or to me. Standing with the principles
of '76 behind us, who can deny them that right? Abraham
Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. You can-
not go through Massachusetts and enlist men to bombard
Charleston and New Orleans."

But not only did Lincoln go through Massachusetts and
enlist men to bombard the cities of the South, he soon brought
Wendell Phillips to embrace despotism as ardently as lover ever
embraced his bride. He made Phillips repudiate and spit on the
principles of '"j^, made him shout loudest of all to the South,
"Rebel! Traitor! Rebel! Traitor!"

On another occasion Phillips told his audience that he "had
labored for nineteen years to dissolve the Union, and now success
has come at last." Before utterly subjected to despotism, in a
speech Phillips said :

"Let the South go! Let her go with flags flying and
trumpets blowing! Give her her forts, her arsenals, and
her sub-treasuries. Speed the parting guest! All hail dis-
union! Beautiful on the mountains are the feet of them
who bring the glad tidings of disunion!"

Not only did Wendell Phillips voice the opinion of the ma-
jority of his own party, but on the subject of war on the South
he voiced the feelings and opinions of all classes of men in the
Northern States. Yet, in spite of this immense opposition to war,
Seward and Lincoln, as Greeley said, "clearly put themselves in
the wrong and rushed on carnage," and not only did these men
turn their backs on their own party, but they turned their backs

i6o Facts and Falsehoods, Chap. 23

on their own opinions, privately and publicly declared, as will
be shown in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Sezuard's Falsehoods. Treachery Blacker than Benedict Arnold's.
Lincoln Confesses that He, at Medill's Demand, Made War
on the South.

On April 4th, 1861, Seward said to Russell, the London
Times correspondent:

"It would be contrary to the spirit of the American
Government to use armed force to subjugate the South. If
the people of the South want to stay out of the Union, if they
desire independence, let them have it."

On April loth, 1861, Seward officially wrote C. F. Adams,
then Minister to England:

"Only a despotic and imperial government can subju-
gate seceding States."

With a treachery blacker than Benedict Arnold's, know-
ingly, deliberately, these two men, Seward and Lincoln, deter-
mined to change the American Government from a free Re-
public to an imperial despotism. During the first month of
Lincoln's Presidency the question of war or peace was freely
discussed in the Cabmet. Few members were in favor of war.
Chase strongly opposed war. Chase always had been a disunion-
ist; he welcomed disunion and wanted to let the South possess
the peace and independence that was hers by right. Not one
single member of the Cabinet was ignorant of the fact that an
attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter would be the first blow of war.
In a discussion of this question in the Cabinet, Seward said :

"The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack
and involve war. The very preparation for such an expedi-
tion will precipitate war at that point. I oppose beginning
war at that point. I would advise against the expedition to
Charleston. I would at once, at ever\ cost, prepare for war
at Pensacola and Texas. I would instr.xt Major Anderson
to retire from Sumter."

Lincoln preferred to open the war at Sumter. If there is
a man in America so ignorant as to believe the falsehood put
forth by these unscrupulous men that the South began the war,
that Lincoln was averse to war, that he called for 75,000 armed

Chap. 23 Facts and Falsehoods. 161

men to protect Washington City, let him consider the story found
in Miss Tarbell's Life of Lincoln, page 144, Vbl. IL, Medill, of
the Chicago Tribune, tells the story, and Miss Tarbell puts it in
her book. It is a very valuable item of history, for it kills the
old, old lie so often told that the South began the war of the 6o's.

"In 1864," relates Medill, "when the call for extra troops
came, Chicago revolted. Chicago had sent 22,000 and was
drained. There were no young men to go, no aliens except
what was already bought. The citizens held a mass meeting
and appointed three men, of whom I (Medill) was one, to
go to Washington and ask Stanton (the War Secretary)
to give Cook County a new enrollment. On reaching Wash-
ington we went to Stanton with our statement. He refused.
Then we went to President Lincoln. T can not do it,' said
Lincoln, 'but I will go with you to Stanton and hear the
arguments of both sides.' So we all went over to the War
Department together. Stanton and General Frye were •
there, and they both contended that the quota should not be
changed. The argument went on for some time, and was
finally referred to Lincoln, who had been silently listening.
When appealed to, Lincoln turned to us with a black and
frowning face: 'Gentlemen/ he said, with a voice full of
bitterness, 'after Boston, Chicago has been the chief instru-
ment in bringing this war on the country. The Northwest
opposed the South, as New England opposed the South.
It is you, Medill, who is largely responsible for making
blood flow as it has. Yon called for war until you had it.
I have given it to you. What you have asked for you have
had. Now you come here begging to be let off from the call
for more men, which I have made to carry on the war you
demanded. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Go
home and raise your 6,000 men. And you, Medill, you
and your Tribune have had more influence than any other
paper in the Northwest in making this war. Go home and
send me those men I want.' "

Medill says that he and his companions, feeling guilty, left
without further argument. They returned to Chicago, and
6,000 more men from the working classes were dragged from
their homes, their families, forced into the ranks to risk limbs
and lives in a war they had no part in making, while the men
that forced that war on an unwilling people remained at home
in comfort and safety, and made enormous fortunes by the war.

1 62 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 23

Is it any wonder educated workingmen often become anarchists
and hate all governments ?

Reflect, oh, reader, on Lincoln's words:

"You, Medill called for war. I have given you war.
What you asked for you have. You demanded war. I
(Lincoln) have given you what you demanded, and you, Me-
dill, are largely responsible for all the blood that has flowed."

In the court of posterity Lincoln will not be able to throw
all of that responsibility on Medill. Had Lincoln been true to
his trust, true to the principles of '76, true to the United States
Constitution he had sworn to obey, true to the party whose vote
had put him in office, true to the great body of the Northern peo-
ple, who opposed war, true to his own declaration of the right of
secession, no number of Medills and no number of Chandlers
could have made him begin that awful war of the 60s. These
three men, Lincoln, Seward and Medill, were the chief conspir-
ators against American liberty. They lived to see the triumph
of their evil work. They lived to see the principles of Democ-
racy trampled down into the bloody mire on a hundred battlefields.
They lived to see the desolation of the States they had hated for
their adherence to Jefferson's principles. They lived to see the
once free people of the States on the South Atlantic coast rob-
bed of every liberty they had won by their swords from Eng-
land's King. They lived to see the South's fair and fruitful
fields desolate deserts, her homes heaps of ashes, her fertile land
a wide waste ; and if, during all that devilish work, one word of
sympathy for the suffering people of the South, one word of
pity for the anguish and agonies endured, ever passed the lips
of either of these three men I have failed to find any record there-
of. On the contrary, the more cruel officers and soldiers in the
field, the more highly they were commended. It is related that
the last utterance that fell from Lincoln's lips was a gibe at the
crushed and conquered South.

"Shall the orchestra play Dixie?" he was asked as he sat
in his box in Ford's theatre that fatal night. "We have con-
quered the South," returned Lincoln gleefully, "we may as
well take her music."

Even as he spoke the unseen Nemesis was standing near,
her eyes upon him. In her hidden hand the missile of death.
To the sound of the South's spirit-stirring air the soul of the man
who had rushed on carnage fled from its house of clay to stand

Chap. 24 Facts and Falsehoods. 163

before the bar of the Great Judge and receive sentence for the
deeds he had done on earth.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Greeley Opposes War on the South. He Speaks to and for the
Republican Party. He Declares the Right of Secession.
Why Lincoln did not Sooner Begin the U^ar. Why Bnch-
anan did not Begin It.

Before giving Mr. Greeley's testimony, it is well to show
the people of this age how he stood with his own party. Greeley
was a life-long abolitionist. All abolitionists believed in the
right of secession. All hated the Union and wanted to break it
to pieces. No man stood higher in the Republican party than
Greeley. In "Onr Presidents, and How We Make Thcjii," Mc-
Clure says :

"Greeley was one of the noblest, purest and ablest of
the great men of the land. Greeley was in closer touch with
the active sense of the people than even President Lincoln
himself."

After Lincoln's death, and the apotheosis ceremony had
been performed, it became the custom of Republican writers and
speakers to talk of "Lincoln's being in touch with the people."
This is nothing but apotheosis twaddle. Lincoln was no more
in touch with the common people than he was with the distin-
guished leaders of his own party. It is almost the unanimous
testimony of Republicans who knew the living Lincoln that he
was neither trusted or beloved by the people of any class. Stan-
ton, when on his death-bed, told General Piatt that the common
soldiers in the army had to be warned by their officers not to
manifest their dislike to Lincoln when he came to review them.

McClure says:

"Greeley's Tribune was the most widely read Republican
paper in the country, and was more potent in moulding Re-
publican sentiment."

In a letter to Robert J. Walker, Lincoln said:

"Greeley is a great power : to have him firmly behind me
would be equal to an army of 100,000 men."

At no time did Lincoln have Greeley behind him. It is said -
Greeley was always a thorn in Lincoln's side. He was a very

164 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 24

large thorn in opposing the war, and after the war was on Gree-
ley was a severe critic of Lincoln's methods of management. Any
Democrat as outspoken as Greeley would promptly have been
sent to prison. Before it was certain that Lincoln meant coer-
cion, day in and day out Greeley opposed coercion. In one issue
of his Tribune, Greeley said :

"If the cotton States decide that they can do better out of
the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace."
In another issue Greeley said:

"If eight States, having 5,000,000 people, choose to
separate from us, they cannot be permanently prevented by
cannon."

Greeley did not then dream it was the purpose of Lincoln
an(' Seward to change the form of the Union Government from
the principles of '76 to the monarchic strong Central Government
advocated by Hamilton, which would enable them forcibly to
hold the South in the Union.

On December 17, i860, the Tribune had this:

"The South has as good a right to secede from the
LTnion as the colonies had to secede from Great Britain.
I will never stand for coercion, for subjugation. It would
not be just."

This was good Democratic doctrine, but not yet was Lin-
coln ready to arrest and imprison men for such utterances.

In the New York Tribune, December 17, i860, three days be-
fore South Carolina seceded from the Union, Greeley had this :

"If the Declaration of Independence justified the seces-
sion from the British Empire of 3,000,000 of colonists in
1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession
of 5,000,000 of Southerners from the Federal Union in
i860."

Democracy of this sort was hard to bear, but still Lincoln
and Seward were silent.

In the Tribune of February 23. 1861, five days after Jeffer-
son Davis was inaugurated President of the Southern Confed-
eracy, Greeley's Tribune had this :

"If the cotton States or the gulf States choose to
form an independent nation, they have a clear moral right
to do so. If the great body of the Southern people have
become alienated from the Union and wish to escape from
it, we will do our best to forward their views."

Chap. 24 Facts and Falsehoods. 165

When Greeley wrote these articles, in his heart was a strong
sense of Democratic justice. Greeley knew that for over twen-
ty years his own party had done and said everything the bit-
terness of hate conld devise to alienate the Southern States and
drive them out of the Union. He knew that his party, day in
and day out, for years had been hurling on Southern men and
women every species of calumny and insult the English lan-
guage could convey. He knew his party was extremely anxious
to have the South secede. He knew that the foremost men of
his party had publicly invited the men of the South to join them
in measures to break up the Union. Democratic doctrines of this
nature daily appearing in the Republican party's most influen-
tial paper greatly annoyed and alarmed Lincoln and Seward, but
not yet had the time arrived to apply the thumb screws of force.
The Tribune continued to give forth what war Republicans call-
ed Democratic screeches.

On November 5, i860, in his Tirhune, Greeley said:

"Whenever a considerable section of our Union is re-
solved to go out of the Union, we shall resist all coercive
measures to keep them in. We hope never to live in a Re-
public when one section is pifined to another by bayonets.
Those who would rush on carnage to defeat the separation
demanded by the popular vote of the Southern people would
clearly place themselves in the wrong."

On March 2, 1861, in the Tribune, Greeley had this:

"We have repeatedly said, and we once more say, the
great principles embodied in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, that Governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed, is sound and just. If the South-
ern people choose to secede and found an independent
government of their own, they have the moral right to do
so."

This was the last trumpet-toned blast from Greeley. Lin-
coln and Seward were nov ready to act. "This must be stop-
ped or it will stop us," muttered the man whose foot was on the
step of the first American throne. "Give me a little bell," re-
turned his high chief counselor, "and I'll ring for the arrest of
every Democratic screecher." What measures were used to
silence Greeley, or rather to make him sing an entirely differ-
ent tune, may never be known, but they were effective. The
change was made in a single night. On the morning follow-

1 66 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 24

ing his strongest Democratic utterance, Greeley completely re-
versed his position, and thenceforth the pages of the Tribune
were freely besprinkled with words grown obsolete under Dem-
ocracy's rule — words native to kingly climes — rebel, traitor,
treason, loyal, disloyal, truly loyal, etc. Under cover of dark-
ness Greeley cut loose forever from the principles of 1776, and
fled to the camp of the men who represented the dogmas of
George III. of England. He became not only the advocate of
those dogmas, but the ally and servitor of the men who rushed
on carnage. He not only upheld the wrong he had so eloquentlv
denounced, but viciously turned on the victims of that wrong,
traduced and maligned them to excuse his own ignoble and cow-
ardly abandonment of sacred principles. After the war ended
Greeley wrote a book called the "American Conflict," and as if to
justifv his change from the principles of '76 to the doctrine of
imperialism, he affected to believe that the South had fought for
slavery and the Republican party to destroy slavery. No man
in America better than Greeley knew that the South fought for
precisely the same principles for which the colonies of '76 had
fought — independence. No man better than Greelev knew that
Lincoln inaugurated war from precisely the same motives \vhich
made George HI. of England wage war on the colonies — con-
quest. To sustain the falsehood that the South fought for
slavery, Greeley plentifully besprinkled the pages of his book
with words intended to convey the idea that slavery was the
animus, the germ of the war. The words "rebels, traitors,
slave-holders' rebellion, slave-holders' war, slave-holders'
treason," stare out from every page of Greeley's book. No
man better than Greeley knew it was no more the slave-holders'
war than was the war of '76. Greeley knew that the great
body of the South's people almost to a unit wanted independ-
ence, and fought to gain it. He knew that the great body of the
South's people were not slave-holders. Blair, of Maryland, a
close friend of Lincoln, on this subject said:

"It is absurd to say this is the slave-holders' war. In
til the South are only about 250,000 slave holders. These
rich men are not too eager for war. It is the Southern
people's war. The people zi'aiif independence and mean to
get it if they can."

The cotton, rice and sugar planters were mostly the slave
holders of the South. These w^ere not the men most eager to
risk life and property in battling for independence. As a gen-

Chap. 24 Facts and Falsehoods. 167

eral rule, the rich are conservative, are afraid of untried condi-
tions. The thousand and one insults, the slanaers, the intense
hatred New England, first led by Federalists, then by the Re-
publican party, for sixty years had hurled on the South's people,
had driven them to secession. Who would not wish to leave
a house of hate ?

Greeley said that the Tribune had plenty of company in

its anti-war sentiments. It is stated that over two hundred of

the foremost journals in the East coincided with Greeley in
opposition to war.

The New York Herald, November 9, i860, said:

"For far less provocation than the South has had, our
fathers seceded from Great Britain. Coercion is out of the
question ; each State possesses the right to break the tie of the
Union, as a nation has to break a treaty. A State has the
right to repel coercion as a nation has to repel invasion."

Morse, in "Lincoln, One of the American Statesmen Ser-
ies,^' published in 1892, says:

"It was appalling to read the columns of Greeley's
Tribune."

It was appalling only to the few men of that time who, with
Seward, Lincoln, Chandler and Aledill, were eager to begin war,
and impatient at the people's opposition. In his "Life of Lin-
coln," published in 1865, Holland gives the reason why Lincoln
did not call for armed men to "suppress rebels" before the fall
of Sumter.

"Up to the fall of Sumter," says Holland, "Mr. Lin-
coln had no basis for action in the public feeling. If he
had raised an army, that would have been an act of hostil-
ity, that would have been coercion. A thousand Northern
presses would have pounced down on him as a provoker
of war. After the fall of Sumter was the time to act."

This shows how almost unanimous was the public feeling
against war until after the Northern people had been worked
up by the lie that the South intended to invade the North. Re-
publican writers of today call the opposition of that time treason,
and the opposers "traitors." If they were traitors, then more
than two-thirds of the American people in the North were
traitors.

i68 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 23

John T. Moyse, in "Lincoln, American Statesman Series,
1892," excuses President Buchanan on the same ground that
Holland excuses Lincoln. He says:

"While Buchanan's message to Congress (announcing
that he had no constitutional warrant to coerce seceding
States) had been bitterly denounced a palliating considera-
tion ought to be noted, viz: The fact that Buchanan knew
that he had no reason to believe that if he had asserted the
right and duty of war, he would be supported by either the
moral or the physir^l force ci Ihc people. The almost uni-
versal feeling of the people in the North was strongly op-
posed to any act of war. Their spirit was conciliatory,"

McClure, author of "Lincoln and Men of the War Time,"
page 292, says :

"A very large proportion of the Republican" party, in-
cluding its most trusted leaders, believed that peaceable se-
cession would result in reconstruction."

CHAPTER XXV.

Almost Universal Opposition to War on the South. Indiana

Longs for Peace. Governor Morton's Desperate Fidelity.
"I am the State." Congressman Cameron's Bosh on the "Life
of the Nation." Nicolay and Hay's Bosh on "Treason."

Morse, p. 250, says:

"Most of Lincoln's ministers were against the re-en-
forcement of Fort Sumter."

They opposed a re-enforcement because they knew a re-en-
forcement meant war. Mass meetings were held in Northern
States denouncing war, and messages sent to Lincoln, warning
him that if he sent an army South he would find a fire in his rear.

Is it not marvelous that men of today seem to believe it
quite a credit to Lincoln that he alone begun the war in opposi-
tion to the great body of the people? Morse and other Repub-
lican writers seem to believe it redounds to Lincoln's glory, that
he made war on the South in opposition to the people's wishes.
They seem to forget that the basic principle of this Government
is that the will of the people shall rule, not the will of one man.

In "American Conflict," Greeley, p. 356, says:

"The Southern States had the active sympathy of a
large majority of the American people."

Chap. 25 Facts and Falskhoous. 169

It is now the Republican's custom to say that this sympathy
was caused by "demoraHzation." By what right did the small
minority force war on the large majority? Morse says:

"Greeley, Wendell Philips, Seward and Chase, repre-
sentative men of the Republican party, were little better
than secessionists."

Is it possible that Mr. Morse is so ignorant of the history
of the Republican party as not to know that from its organization,
in 1854, up to the first blow of war struck by Lincoln at Sumter,
the whole Republican party were secessionists, and that party
had labored for disunion, labored for secession? Is it possible
that Mr. Morse knows nothing of the efforts the Federal fore-
fathers of Republicans made in 1804 and 1814 to get New Eng-
land to secede from the Union and to form a Northeastern Con-
federacy ? Is it possible he is ignorant of the fact that such men
as Senator Wade of Ohio, Abraham Lincoln, and other high
lights in the Republican party long before the South seceded,
made speeches declaring the right of the South to secede? The
right to form an independent government? What right has
Morse, or any man, to attempt to write history when he is
ignorant of the most important facts of said history?

Boutwell, member of Congress from Massachusetts, says:
"With varying degrees of intensity the whole Demo-
cratic party sympathized with the South and arraigned
Lincoln and the Republican party for all the country en-
dured."

No man worthy of the name Democrat can refuse to sym-
pathize with a brave people fighting at desperate odds for their
homes, their lives, their liberties. Was there one Democrat in
all America who did not sympathize with the brave Boers of
South Africa? Only imperialists and monarchists can fail to
feel for brave men fighting for freedom.

Boutwell says:

"During the entire period of the war New York and
Illinois were doubtful States. Indiana was only kept in line
by the desperate fidelity of Governor Morton."

"Desperate fidelity" here means Morton's desperate deter-
mination to make himself absolute master of Indiana. This he
did, by Lincoln's aid, and for two years Morton was able to say,

170 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 25

"I am the State." In Foulk's Life of Governor Morton, pub-
lished 1899, Chapter twenty-two is headed by the words, "7 am
the State," and RepubHcans of today glory in the fact that a
man elected Governor of a free State in the Union was able to
rob the people of that State of every liberty they possessed, and
make himself their master for two years. The facts were these :
The people of Indiana were weary of the war. Lincoln had
refused to permit two commissioners from the South to enter
Washington City. The people believed the art of diplomacy
might end the war, and believed that Lincoln made no effort that
way. All over Indiana, as, indeed, all over every State on the West
and the South, went up the anguished wail, "Oh, the cruel war !
Oh, the cruel war!" The people of Indiana elected to the Legis-
lature men pledged to use every effort to promote peace and stop
bloodshed. Morton and Lincoln resolved that these peace-loving
men should never act as legislators. By Lincoln's aid Mor-
ton's "desperate fidelity" made him master of the State for two
years. Not a man elected to the Legislature was al-
lowed to perform his duties. Nicolay and Hay, as all other
modern Republican writers, justify Morton's usurpation of State
power on the ground that "disloyalty was widespread through-
out the West." Disloyalty means anything opposed to Lincoln's
policy of conquering the South by bloody battles. Disloyalty
is always the ready excuse for despotism.
Holland, in his Life of Lincoln, says:

"In proportion as people were treasonable they op-
posed the suspension of the habeas corpus and denounced
arbitrary arrests."

To condemn despotism is always treasonable in the opin-
ion of despots and despot worshippers.

In the Life of Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin, p. 459, is
this:

"If we (the Republican war party) had had a common
union in the North, and a common loyalty to the Lincoln
Government, we could have ended the war months ago."

This means that the people of the North so hated the war
it impeded the wicked work of conquest.

In Andrews' History of the United States, p. 95, the author
says :

"An absurd prejudice against coercion largely possess-
ed the loyal masses throughout the whole North : the feeling
was strong against all efforts at coercion."

Chap. 25 Facts and Falsehoods. 171

It is gratifying to humane hearts, even at this late day, thirty-
eight years after the end of that woeful war, to know that the
great masses of the North's people had such kindly feelings
toward the South 's people as to oppose the bloody war of con-
quest which Lincoln and Seward waged upon them. This
knowledge will do much toward restoring friendly feelings in
the South. On February 20, 1901. in the House of Represent-
atives, referring to the opposition of the 60s to Mr. Lincoln's
war, Mr. Cameron, of Illinois, said:

"When the life of the Nation was at stake, men all
over the North stood behind the firing line and encouraged
desertion from the army. I thought if 8,000 or 10,000 Cop-
perheads had been shot the result would have been less de-
sertion."

The reader must bear in mind that Copperhead was the pet
narae Republicans in the 60s gave to Northern Democrats, and
further bear in mind that any man who dared to doubt the jus-
tice of Lincoln's war on the South was a Copperhead, a seces-
sionist, a traitor, all in one. I, for one. thank Mr. Cameron for
his little item of information ; I rejoice that numbers of men, large
or small, under the dark despotism of Lincoln's rule, had the
courage to stand behind the firing line and advise soldiers to es-
cape from the danger, the wickedness, of fighting a war of con-
quest on a free people. When Mr. Cameron talks of the "life
of the Nation at stake," he talks without judgment and with-
out truth. Never for a moment was the life of the Nation or
of the North's L'^nion Government at stake. The South never
threatened the life of the Nation or of the North's Union Gov-
ernment.

In Rope's Story of the Civil War (war of conquest) he
says:

"During the winter of i860 Congress took no action
whatever looking toward the preparation for the conquest
of the outgoing States."

That Congress well knew it had no constitutional or moral
right to conquer the South. It had no inclination ; that Con-
gress, as well as the people of that time all over the North, were
in a peaceful mood and hated the very iidea of coercing the
South. ' ^

Morse says:

172 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 25

"Most of Lincoln's ministers were against the re-enforce-
ment of Fort Sumter."

They knew the attempt to re-enforce meant war. They did
not want war.

January 21, 1861, before an immense gathering in New
York, an orator said :

"If a revoh:tion is to begin, it shall be inaugurated
at home."

This was roundly cheered. Before Lincoln let slip the
dogs of war, the distinguished Chancellor Walworth said :

"It will be as brutal to send men to butcher our broth-
ers in the South as it would be to massacre them in the North."

It certainly was as brutal and as unjust. This brutality the
Republican party committed.

A large meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, was emphatic
against war.

"The symptoms," says Horace Greeley in American Con-
flict, were that vast numbers were infected with such senti-
ments. It was feared at the North that blood would flow in
Northern cities as soon and as freely as in Southern, if forc-
ible coercion should be attempted. Matters looked even
worse for the Union in Congress than in the country. The
prevalent desire was for peace, while some adopted seces-
sion doctrines. Daniel Sickles, in the House, threatened
that the secession of the South should be followed by that
of New York City."

On page 441, Vol. i, Nicolay and Hay. in their Life of
Lincoln, give the following picture of the Northern people's
state of mind at that time :

"It will hardly be possible for readers in our day (1890)
to understand the state of public sentiment in the United
States during the month of March, 1861. The desire for
peace, the hope for compromise, strangest of all, a national
lethargy utterly impossible to account for, seemed to mark
a decadence of patriotic feeling. This phenomenon is at-
tested in the records of many public men, and shown in the
words and example of military officers, in their consenting
to shut their eyes to the truth that it is the right of a Gov-
ernment to repel menaces as well as blows."

Chap. 25 Facts and Falsehoods. 173

Were logic of this nature only used by the few it would not
merit a moment's attention, but stuff of this flimsy and false
texture is used every day by Republican writers and politicians.
The "desire for peace, the hope for compromise" felt by the great
majority of the North's people, Nicolay and Hay have the stu-
pidity to say:

"Marked a decadence of patriotic feeling."

Patriotism does not mean eagerness for wars of conquest.
War is the worst calamity that can befall a people, except subjec-
tion to despots. The great body of the Northern people knew
there was no danger threatening from the South. The South
at that time had commissioners in Washington pleading for
peace, and because the North's people preferred giving them peace
to giving them bloody war, Nicolay and Hay talk of "patriotic
decadence." The future psychologist will decide that men
afflicted with the madness of war, men like Chandler, Medill, Sew-
ard and Lincoln, eager to plunge two peaceful peoples into cruel
war, were the decadents, the degenerates of our race. How fear-
fully distorted must be that man's judgment who calls the lovers
of peace "decadents." How crooked must be that man's channels '
of thought, who thinks it patriotism to uphold the government
of bloody-minded despots. Patriotism! These men did not
know the meaning of the word.

When Nicolay and Hay talk of the "right of a government
to repel menaces as well as blows," do they mean to assert that
the South menaced the Government, or the people of the North ?
There is not the shadow of foundation for such an assertion.
In the most respectful manner, with the dignity of free born men,
the South's commissioners prayed the Union Government for
amicable adjustment of their partnership affairs, and expressed
the desire to live in peace and friendship with their Northern
neighbors, and offered to pay the South's just proportion of the
national debt. With their usual trickery and falsehood, Repub-
licans made every eft'ort to inflame the minds of Northern
people by representing that one consequence of the separation of
the States would be to lose the free navigation of the Mississippi
River. The fact is, as early as the 25th of February, 1861, an
act was passed by the Confederate Congress and approved by
President Davis to declare and establish the free navigation of
the Mississippi River. If any man thinks these approaches a
menace deserving to be repelled by bloody war, his judgment is
distorted beyond the hope of remedy.

174 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 25

"Treason," continues Nicolay and Hay, "was every-
where."

The reader must bear in mind the fact that Repubhcan
writers never hesitate to misuse words. To justify their own
misdeeds, they call everything opposing those deeds treason.
Opposition to their war policy was treason. As the principles
of '76 opposed their war of conquest, faithfulness to those prin-
ciples was treason. The large majority of the people in the
Northern States opposed the policy of war. According to mod-
ern Republican writers, these people were traitors. The ma-
jority of members in Lincoln's Cabinet at first opposed war.
Nicolay and Hay excuse this on the ground that at that time
the Cabinet members did not recognize Lincoln's greatness. Not
until after Lincoln's death did those Cabinet members, or any
other distinguished Republican, "see Lincoln's greatness.

"The men in Lincolns' Cabinet," says Nicolay and Hay,
"at that time looked on him as a simple frontier lawyer, to
whom chance had given the Presidency."

It is true that chance had given Lincoln the Presidency. It
is true that he was neither the choice of the American people at
large nor of the majority of his own party. The great major-
ity of his own party preferred Chase or Seward. Accident gave
the office to Lincoln. But if any man in his Cabinet looked on
him as a simple backwoods lawyer, he could have made no great-
er mistake. Lincoln was the least simple man of the age. Sim-
ple means plain, open, not given to trickery or duplicity, unde-
signing, sincere, not complex. In his suppressed Life of Lin-
coln, Herndon says, "Lincoln made candor and simplicity a
mask." Lamon says Lincoln was the shrewdest politician of
the age. Lamon, who knew and loved Lincoln like a brother,
says of him :

"Mr. Lincoln was never agitated by any passion more
intense than his wonderful thirst for distinction. This pas-
sion governed all his conduct up to the hour the assassin
struck him down. He was ever ready to be honored ; he
struggled incessantly for place. Whatsoever he did in pol-
itics, at the bar, in private life, had more or less reference
to the great object of his life."

Nature had bestowed on Mr. Lincoln two gifts which he
used to gain power and place. The one, as Seward described it,
"a cunning that was genius." The other was the gift of elo-

Chap. 25 Facts and Falsehoods.

175

quence of a peculiar order, inasmuch as its power and beauty
seemed to be little appreciated by hearers, but readers were
struck with admiration. Probably this was owing- to Mr. Lin-
coln's shrill, piping voice, ungainly person and extremely awk-
ward movements. Instance the Gettysburg address, now thought
to be the finest specimen .of American oratory. Lamon, who
heard it, describes its effect on Lincoln's audience as follows:

"Mr. Lincoln," says Lamon in his "Recollections of
Lincoln," said to me, 'I tell you, Lamon, that speech was
like a wet blanket on the audience. I am distressed about
it.' "

On the platform, the moment after Mr. Lincoln's speech
was concluded, Mr. Seward asked Mr. Everett, the orator of the
day, what he thought of the President's speech. Mr. Everett
rephed: "It is not what I expected. I am disappointed. What
do you think of it, Mr. Seward?" The response was, "He
has made a failure." In the face of these facts it has been re-
peatedly published that this speech was received by the audience
with loud demonstrations of approval, that —

"Amid the tears, sobs and cheers it produced in the excit-
ed throng, the orator of the day (Mr. Everett) turned to
Mr. Lincoln, grasped his hand and exclaimed, "I congratu-
late you on your success," adding in a transport of heated
enthusiasm, "^Ir. Presiclent, how gladly would I give my
hundred pages to be the author of your twenty lines!" Noth-
ing of the kind ever occurred. The silence during the de-
livery of the speech, the lack of hearty demonstrations of
approval after its close, were taken by Mr. Lincoln as cer-
tain proof that it was not well received. In that opinion we
all shared. I state it as a fact and without fear of contra-
diction, that this famous Gettysburg speech was not regard-
ed by the audience to whom it was addressed, or by the press
and people of the United States, as a production of extraor-
dinary merit, nor was it commented on as such until after the
death of Mr. Lincoln."

— Lamon's Recollections of Lincoln, p. 173.

It is now said that Lamon's Life of Lincoln is fast disap-
pearing from the face of the earth ; that the same agency which
swept out of existence Herndon's Life of Lincoln is fast pur-
suing the same course with Lamon's book. Is this because Re-
publicans do not want their apotheosizing romances about Mr.

176 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 25

Lincoln exposed and corrected, as Lamon exposed and corrected
the twaddle about the Gettysburg speech?

Before the South seceded, the foremost men in the Re-
publican party openly maintained the right of secession. Wm.
Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Sumner, Wade of Ohio, Henr>
Ward Beecher, Chase, Lincoln and hosts of others were among
the number. In fact, the whole Republican party taught that
the principle of secession was right and labored for disunion.
Some of these men after Carolina and other States had seceded,
continued to assert the right of secession. Phillips, in a speech
joyously announcing secession, said :

"Twenty years ago the men of the North resolved to
dissolve the Union. Who dreamed success would come so
soon?"

In a speech in Faneuil Hall, Boston, February 2, 1861, Ed-
ward Everett said:

"To expect to hold fifteen States in the Union by force
is preposterous. If our sister States must leave us, in the
name of Heaven let them go in peace."

The New York Herald, independent in politics, November
II, i860, said:

"The South has an undeniable right to secede from the
Union. In the event of secession, the City of New York.
the State of New Jersey, and ve'ry likely Connecticut, will
separate from New England, where the black man is put on
a pinnacle above the white. New York City is for the Union
first, and for the gallant and chivalrous South afterwards."

Holland, in his Life of Lincoln, says:

"For months after South Carolina had seceded, while
State after State was passing secession ordinances and were
seizing forts and arsenals in their boundaries, neither Pres-
ident or Cabinet or Supreme Court at Washington took one
step toward coercion."

Why should these high powers take a step toward coercion?
The highest legal authority in the land had advised
President Buchanan that neither he nor Congress had any right
to coerce seceding States. Not only this, the great majority of
the North's people had accepted that advice as right and just.
and opposed coercion. In his "American Conflict," Greeley
says:

Chap. 25 Facts and Falsehoods. 177

"The active and earnest sympathy of a large majority
of the American people was with the South."

The Legislatures of Illinois and New Jersey were nearly
unanimous in that direction.
On page 513, Greeley says:

"There was not a moment when a large portion of the
Northern Democracy were not hostile to any form or shade
of coercion. Many openly condemned and stigmatized a war
on the South as atrocious, unjustifiable and aggressive."

No Democrat that ever lived could think a war of conquest
on free States right. This belief is left for men of the imperial-
istic Republican party.

On page 270, Morse says:

"By the end of May, 1861, Mr. Lincoln looked forth on a
spectacle as depressing as ever greeted the eye of a great
ruler. Eleven States, with an area and a population and
resources for constituting a powerful nation, their peo-
ple in entire unity of feeling, and two-thirds of the North's
people in sympathy with their secession."

Reader, mark the two last lines of the above. The South-
ern people in entire unity of feeling {in zmnting independence)
and two-thrds of the North's people in sympathy zvith seces-
sion. Yet, ten thousand times have Republicans tried to blacken
the South's cause by the infamous lie that they were fighting
the slave-holder's war to maintain slavery. The reader should
also notice the title, "great ruler," which Mr. Morse gives to
Lincoln. When the principles of Democracy pervaded this
country, men elected to office were called the servants of the
people, not the rulers. Never yet have the people of America
elected any man to rule them, but to serve. Lincoln was the first
President who usurped the power to rule the American people.
McClure, page 56, says : ,

"When Lincoln turned to the military arm of the Gov-
ernment he was appalled by the treachery of the men whom
the Nation should look to for protection. Nearly one-
third of the oflficers in the regular army resigned."

It is appalling in this age to see the judgments of men like
McClure so distorted as to call opposition to war and love of
peace treachery. Treachery to what ? To whom ? Certainly
not to the principles of freedom. Certainly not to the United

1-8 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 25

States Constitution. These demanded that the South should
be free ; not conquered, not subjugated. Certainly not to the
North's people ; these McClure, as other historians state, were
of the same opinion as the military men who resigned from the
regular army rather than fight a war of conquest on a free peo-
ple. McClure makes the serious mistake of calling the small
number of men determined on war "the Xation." He and oth-
ers tell us that the great majority of the Northern people opposed
war. This majority is entitled to be called "the Nation." The
small minority which held in its grip the machinery of Gov-
ernment had no more right to call itself ''the \'ation" than the
Bourbon King had the moral right to say 'T am the State."

General Keifer says, about March, 1861 :

"Disloyalty among the prominent officers was for a
time the rule."

Disloyalty here means loyalty to the principles of '76. Hap-
good says of the officers who resigned from the army rather than
fight a war of conquest on the free people at the South :

"These men who had been favored with offices proved
false to the hand that pampered them."

Had these officers received commissions as favors or because
they were expected to render good service to the country there-
for? The word pamper means fed to the full. Does Hapgood
mean to say that the President, who commissioned officers for
the regular army, bestowed those commissions as favors and then
pampered {fed to the full) those favored officers? Only a moral
or mental pervert will condemn an officer for resigning rather
than fight his own people. These Southern officers were edu-
cated at West Point, as much at the expense of the South as of
the North, and were under far more obligation to the South than
to the North.

Woodrow Wilson, in "Disunion and Reunion," has this:

"President Buchanan agreed with his Attorney-Gen-
eral that there was no constitutional measure or warrant
for coercing a State ; such for the time seemed to he the gen-
eral opinion of the country."

Seemed f Did not Professor Woodrow Wilson knozc it was
no seem, but long had been the actual opinion of the country?
Yet Republican writers of today have the hardihood to charge

Chap. 25 Facts axd Falsehoods.

179

a whole country with "disloyalty," with "appalling treachery."
Morse says :

"None of the disting-uished men of his own party whom
Lincoln found about him in Washington were in a frame of
mind to assist him efficiently/'

The most distinguished men of his own party were unwill-
ing to assist Mr. Lincoln in his wicked policy of waging on
the South a war of conquest. These men well knew their party
from its birth had labored for disunion, had advocated seces-
sion, had held conventions and sent invitations to men of the
South, urging them to help them break the Union asunder.

Everyone knows the character of Charles Sumner, Senator
from Massachusetts, one of the most honored and trusted mem-
bers of the Republican party. No man, not even Greeley, more
strongly opposed war on the South than Senator Sumfier.
Sumner said :

"Nothin-j can possibly be so horrible, so wicked or so
foolish as a war on the South."

Xorth American Review, October. 1879, P- 378-

Yet Lincoln, aided by Seward, contrary to the wishes and
will of the great majority of Northern people, did this horrible,
wicked and foolish thing.
McClure says :

"Even in Philadelphia, nearly the whole of the com-
mercial and financial interests were at first arrayed against
Lincoln."

In American Conflict Greeley describes (page 387) a tre-
mendous demonstration against the war made in New York,
February, 1861. Greeley records expressions of the purpos*
not only not to coerce the South, but to aid her in case of wat.
Such expressions were received with warm applause. In a speech
of James S. Thayer it was alleged that these views had been
asserted by 333,000 voters in New York in the last election.

— C. L. Minor's Real Lincoln.

As evidence of the widespread opposition to Lincoln's w£i
Greeley relates the following:

"On the eve of the battle of Bull Run the Fourth Penn-
sylvania Regiment of Volunteers and the battery of artillery
of the Eighth New York militia, whose term of enlistment
had expired, insisted on their discharge, though the Gen-

i8o Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 25

eral and Secretary of War, both on the spot, tried hard to
make them stay five days more. The next morning when
the Union army moved into battle these troops moved to the
rear to the sound of the enemy's guns."

Greeley concludes the story thus :

"It should be added that a member of the New York
battery aforesaid, who was most earnest and active in oppos-
ing General McDowell's request to remain five days longer,
and insisting on an immediate discharge, was, in full view
of all these facts, at the next election chosen sheriff of New '
York, the most hicrative office -filled by popular election in
the country."

No man more strongly opposed war than Greeley himself,
but the despotism of the Lincoln Government forced Greeley to
acquiesce in that war.

Ex-Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, in a speech made De-
cember 28, i860, said:

"I am heart and soul for the South. She is right in
principle, and from the Constitution."

This was warmly applauded. Such was then the opinion of
the great body of the people in the Northern States. Three days
after South Carolina seceded, Governor Reynolds said :

"The Government itself, the army and the navy, ought
to remain with the South."

On December 9. i860, the New York Herald, in a dispatch
from Washington, had this :

"The current of opinion seems to set strongly in favor
of reconstruction, and leaving out the New England States.
These latter are thought to be so fanatical it would be im-
possible there would be any peace under a Government to
which they were parties."

All this Republicans of this day call "treason." No Repub-
lican of that day ventured to call the opinions of the great body
of the North's people treason.

In American Conflict, page 436, Greeley says:

"Throughout the Northern States eminent and eager
advocates of adhesion to the new Confederacy were well
and widely heeded. It was understood that Governor Sey-
mour, of New York, Judge Woodward, F. W. Hughes, of

Chap. 26 Facts axd Falsehoods. 181

Pennsylvania, Price of New Jersey, all distinguished men,
were among those who favored adherence to the South."

Not until after Lincoln and Seward held in their grip all
the machinery of Government, and felt certain they could carry
out their purpose of conquering the South, did the Republican
party begin to use the words :

Rebel ! Rebellion ! Traitor ! Treason !

The great numbers of the North's people who opposed the
war suddenly became traitors ; any and every word of opposition
became treason ; arbitrary arrests and imprisonments began, and
a pall of blackest despotism spread over the land. Greeley's
Tribune^ April 15, 1861, had this:

"The day before Sumter was surrendered two-thirds of
the newspapers in the North opposed coercion in any shape
or form, and sympathized with the South. These papers
were the South's allies and champions. Three-fifths of the
entire American people sympathized with the South. Over
200,000 voters opposed coercion, and believed the South had
the right to secede."

Think of this, men of America! Think how easy it is for
an American President elected to serve and carry out the will of
the people ; how easy it is to make himself the master of the peo-
ple, and force them to do his will, contrary to their own.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Why Grant Refused to Exchange Prisoners. Grant Compares
Northern and Southern Soldiers. Desertions from Union Ar)n\.
Riots, Arbitrary Arrests, "Suspects." Thirty-eight Thousand
Innocent Men and Women Fill Northern Prisons. Civil Law
Overthrown. Lincoln Unpopular. The People's Indigna-
tion in 1861, 1862, 1863. The People's Indictment in 1864.
ludiciary Oppose Lincoln.

The Journal of Commerce fought coercion until the United
States mail refused to carry the papers, in 1861. The New York
Daily Nezvs continued to denounce the Republican party as a
blood-thirsty set, advocating wholesale murder, as vultures gloat-
ing over carnage, until the freedom of the press was suppressed.

John A. Logan, in Great Conspiracy, page 551, describes a
gathering at Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln's home, in June of

1^2 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 26

1863. o^ nearly 100,000 anti-war Democrats, wiiich utterly re-
pudiated the war. There was open and avowed hostility to Lin-
coln in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and of strong op-
position in New Jersey. So violent was the hostility to war in
Massachusetts and New York, the call for volunteers was un-
heeded, and when the Government demanded a draft, the people
gathered in crowds and fearful riots ensued. In New York City
the opposition was so violent, the rioters so numerous, the city
was terrified for days and nights. The houses in which the draft
machines were at work were wrecked and then burned to
ashes. The police were powerless to restrain the immense gath-
erings of men and women who walked the streets day and night.
The order for the draft was rescinded by the Washington Gov-
ernment, the people urged to disperse and retire to their homes,
which they did, as they thought, on the promise that there would
be no more drafting. But that treacherous Government, as soon
as the people returned to their daily work, sent a large body
of soldiers to overawe them, and again the accursed machines
were set to work, and again the wheels began to turn, until the
required number of men were secured. In this way men were
forced to fight a people toward whom they had no animosity, and
for a Government they knew was blackly despotic.

Before a Congressional committee Grant testified as follows :

"I refused to exchange prisoners because as soon as the
South 's soldiers are released from our prisons they rush
back into the rebel ranks and begin fighting again. When
Northern soldiers return from Southern prisons either they
never again enter the ranks, or if they do, not until they go
to their homes and have a long furlough."

It is easy enough to see the cause of this difference between
soldiers of the North and soldiers of the South. The former
were forced into a war they were unwilling to fight, and millions
believed unjust. The South's soldiers, every man, felt and knew
they were fighting for their lives, their liberties, their homes, all
that hearts hold dear. The very souls of the South's men and
women were in that fight.

Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VI., tell of violent resistance to the
draft in Pennsylvania. Half fed, badly clothed, exposed as they
were to the cold of winter and the heat of summer, in no part
of the South was manifested any opposition to the war. In
Grant's Memoirs he draws comparison between the feelings of

Chap. 26 Facts and Falsehoods. 183

the people of the North and the people of the South during the
war,

"In the South," says Grant, "no rear had to be protected.
All the troops in the service could be brought to the front
to contest every inch of ground threatened with invasion ; the
press of the South, like the people who stayed at home, were
loyal to the Southern cause. Vast numbers in the North
were hostile to the war. Troops zvere necessary in the North
to prevent prisoners from the Southern army being released,
armed and set free by outside force. Copperheads of the
press magnified rebel success and belittled those of the
Union army."

Copperheads were Northern Democrats. For the first two
years of the war the successes of the South's soldiers were so
great and the success of the North so small, the latter could
hardly have been belittled. The election of 1862 showed great
losses to the Republican party.

Nicolay and Hay assert that —

"In all strong Republican States the opposition was tri-
umphant and the administration defeated."

This falling ofif of votes resulted from the people's hatred
of the war and distrust of Lincoln.

Tarbell, who simply worships Lincoln, in her Life of Lincoln
says:

"In the winter of 1862-3 many and many a man de-
serted the army. They refused to fight. Mr. Lincoln knew
that hundreds of soldiers were being urged by parents and
friends to desert. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana.
and Illinois reversed their vote. Under the August call,
1864, for 360,000 militia, the people were very uneasy They
were weary of the war, weary of so much waste of life and
money. Their feelings showed itself in an extensive form,
in open dissatisfaction in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which
broke out in violence over the draft for more men."

The numerous arbitrary arrests and imprisonments in dis-
mal and distant fortresses, of innocent citizens, greatly alarmed
the people ; murmurs were deep but not loud. A reign of terror
existed in the Northern States. Dissatisfaction made itself felt
at the polls. The November and October elections in many
States opposed the Republican party. To lull this feeling, Lin-

184 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 26

coin, Seward and Stanton, as usual, resorted to trickery and de-
ception. Stanton became the ready tool to perform the mean
and contemptible work of lying to the public. From his official
office, 1862, Stanton wrote a letter, which he had published in
the newspapers. The object was two-fold; first, to excuse Lin-
coln's arbitrary arrests, on the ground that a vast amount of trea-
son (opposition to the war was called treason) existed in the
Northern States. Second, to make the public believe that the
resistance in the South was declining, therefore there was no
further necessity to make arbitrary arrests. Therefore President
Lincoln intended to order the release of citizens in the jails and
forts. To carry out this lying scheme, Stanton wrote his official
letter, which, being verbose, I will only give the gist, as follows :

"War Department, Washington City, 1862.
"Treason," wrote Stanton, "in the Northern States as-
tounded the world."

This was utterly false. The world was not astounded, nor
did the world call adherence to the South treason.

"Every department in the Government was paralzyed.
Disaffection was in the Senate, in the Federal Courts, among
the Ministers returning from foreign countries, in the Cab-
inet. Treason was in the revenue and postoffice services, in
the territorial government, in the Indian reserves, minis-
terial officers, among judges, governors, legislators. Trea-
son was in that portion of the country which was most loyal.
Secret societies were found furthering the work of disunion.
The judicial machinery seemed as if it had been designed
not to sustain the Government, but to embarrass and be-
tray it. The President thought it his duty to suspend the
habeas corpus and arrest all suspected persons. The in-
surrection is believed to be declining. In view of these
facts the President directs that all political or state prisoners
nozv held in military custody be released, on their subscrib-
ing to a parole to render no aid and comfort to the enemy."
Every word in this letter was intended to deceive. First,
Stanton makes a big blow over what he called treason (opposi-
tion to war) to justify Lincoln's illegal arrests ; then he pre-
tends the South 's insurrection is declining, in order to make a
decent excuse for Lincoln's pretense of stopping the illegal ar-
rests ; then he falsely states that Lincoln has ordered the pris-
oners released. To carry out the deception, Stanton issued the
following order :

Chap. 26 Facts and Falsehoods. 185

"War Department, Washington City, Nov. 22, 1862.
"Order First. That all persons now in military custody,
etc., be discharged from further military restraint.
"Bv order of Secretary of War.
(Signed^ "E. D. TOWNSEND."

Now, mark this mean lie. Lincoln had no intention of direct-
ing the prisoners released. Order First was for the people to
see, not for jailers to obey. Only two days after issuing the
above order Stanton sent a secret order to the jailers, as fol-
lows :

"Washington, November 24, 1862. "
"Commanding Officer, Fort :

"None of the prisoners conilned at your post will he re-
leased on orders of the War Department of the 22nd inst..
•without special instructions from this Department.
"Bv order of Secretary of War.

"E. D. TOWNSEND."

American Bastiles, page ySy.

In Rhodes' History of the United States, Vol. IV, p. 165. he
has this:

"One of the results of the elections of November and
October was that Stanton issued an order which, after a for-
mal delay, effected the discharge from military custody of
practically all the political prisoners."

Rhodes makes no mention of Stanton's second order, sent
to rescind the first; he makes a mistake when he says the pris-
oners were practically released from custody on Stanton's first
order. Marshall, in American Bastiles, states that the second
order prevented the first being obe3'ed, and that the greater num-
ber of the prisoners in Forts Lafayette and Delaware (if not in
all other forts) were not discharged until late in December, and
some not until long after. In explanation of Mr. Lincoln's
great unpopularity during his life. General Piatt says:

"Lincoln was a minority President, and had no hold
on the affections of the people."

At no time did the living Lincoln have any hold on the affec-
tions of the people. Even before he took his seat the great body
of the people distrusted and dishked him. His adorer, Miss
Tarbell, testifies to this.

In Vol. I., p. 398, Miss Tarbell says :

1 86 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 26

"Before Mr. Lincoln left Springfield for Washington,
the North was desperate and helpless. All the bitterness
and confusion centered about Mr. Lincoln. The rapid
disintegration which followed j\Tr. Lincoln's election filled
the North with dismay. A furious clamor broke over Mr.
Lincoln's head. His election had caused the trouble. What
could he do to stop it?"

Had Lincoln been true to the Constitution and the princi-
ples of 'y^y, he could have stopped it in 24 hours. The people
were afraid Lincoln meant war. Had he told them, as Buchanan •
did, that he had no intention of inaugurating a war of conquest.
the 'uneasiness of the people would have vanished into thin air.
Over two-thirds of the people greatly disliked and distrusted the
Republican party, which w^s chiefly known by its fierce, vindictive
hate of the Union, of the South, and of the United States Con-
stitution. The majority of the Republican party distrusted Lin-
coln. They wanted Seward or Chase. The latter would have
made a far more humane, honest President than either Seward
or Lincoln.

In Vol. II, page 65, Tarbell says:

"In 1 861 a perfect storm of denunciation broke over
Mr. Lincoln's head. The whole North was angry ; impeach-
ment was threatened. Fremont was talked of to put in his
place."

This dissatisfaction did not cease or abate during Mr. Lin-
coln's term in office. Even the dread of arbitrary arrest and
imprisonment did not wholly quell the people into silence. In
the army great dissatisfaction prevailed.

In McClnre's Magazine, January, 1893, p. 165, Tarbell
says :

"Many and many a man deserted in the winter of 1862-3
because of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. The sol-
diers did not believe that Lincoln had the right to issue it.
They refused to fight. Lincoln knew that hundreds of the
soldiers were being urged by parents and friends, hostile to
him and his administration, to desert."

In 1864 the opposition to the war and to Lincoln was vio-
lent and bitter, and almost universal. Tarbell describes the peo-
ple's feelings of that year as follows :

"In 1864 the awful brutality of the war came upon the
people as never before. There was a revolution of feeling

Chap. 26 Facts and FAr.SKHoons. 187

against the sacrifice going on. All the complaints that had
been urged against Mr. Lincoln broke out afresh ; the draft
was talked of as if it were the arbitrary freak of a tyrant.
It was declared that Lincoln had violated constitutional
rights, declared that he had violated personal liberty, and
the liberty of the press. It was said that Lincoln had been
guilty of all the abuses of a military dictatorship. Much
bitter criticism was made of his treatment of the South's
peace commissioners. It was declared that the Confeder-
ates were anxious to make peace. It was declared that Lin-
coln was so blood-thirsty he was unwilling to use any means
but force. The despair, the indignation of the country in
this dreadful time was all centered on Mr. Lincoln."

Republican writers give positive evidence that every one
of the above charges was true. President Lincoln —

Had violated personal liberty.
Had violated constitutional rights.
Had violated the liberty of the press.
Had been guilty of all the abuses of a military dictator.
Had repulsed the Confederate peace commissioners.
Had refused to use any means except bloody force to attain
peace.

No man who reads Republican history can deny one of the
above charges.

At that time the people of the North did not know that Lin-
coln himself had confessed to Medill, as related by Tarbell, that
he, Lincoln, had begun the war at the demand of Medill. Though
not having this evidence, the people felt in their hearts that Lin-
coln was responsible for the awful war. Not until Miss Tarbell.
in 1895, related Medill's confession of his part in the wicked work
of deluging the land with blood was it known that Lincoln had
knowingly, deliberately, of set purpose, plunged the country into
war at Medill's recjuest. Never should Lincoln's words to Me-
dill be forgotten :

"You asked for war ; I have given you what you asked
for. You demanded war. I have given you what you demand-
ed. You are chiefly responsible for all the blood that has
flowed."

1 88 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 27

CHAPTER XXVII.

What a Battle Meant to Lincoln. Greeley Prays Lincoln for
Peace. Rosecrans, Grant, Hallack on the People's Hatred of
the War. Soldiers Dislike Lincoln. Judge Curtis on Lin-
coln's Usurpation. Republican Writers, Rhodes, Morse,
Hapgood, Bancroft and Others Laud Despotism.

As illustrative of Lincoln's character, General Piatt says :

"A battle to Lincoln meant the killing and wounding of
a certain number of men, the consequences to be counted
like a sum in arithmetic. Lincoln faced and lived through
the awful responsibility of the war with the courage that
came from indifference.'"

Piatt does not mean indifference as to the result of the war ;
that Lincoln was certain of, if only the Northern people would
not force him to end it too soon but indifference to the suffering
caused by the war. Piatt says Lincoln was by nature incapa-
ble of sympathy. Greeley, on the contrary, seemed to have
possessed the capacity to feel pity and sympathy for the agonies
the war caused the people of the North, and even gave some
little thought to the suffering South. When Lincoln refused
to see or to hear the Confederate commissioners, Clement Clay
and James P. Holcomb, Greeley wrote Lincoln a letter protest-
ing against that refusal, in which he painted a heart-rending
picture of the bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country. Greeley
said he shuddered at the prospect of more conscriptions, of fur-
ther wholesale devastations and more rivers of human blood.
He said to Lincoln: "There is a widespread conviction that
the administration is not anxious for peace, and does not im-
prove proffered opportunities to achieve it." So far as I can
learn Greeley was the only prominent man in the Republican
party who, during that dreadful war, and that still more dreadful
reconstruction period, manifested the least desire to stop the
devastation suffered by the South. As further evidence of oppo-
sition to Lincoln may be stated the following:

"General Rosecrans reported to Washington the exist-
ence in the Western States of secret organizations of men
bound by oath to co-operate with the Confederates, to the
number of 400,000. Nicolay and Hay put the number at
350,000."

Chap. 27 Facts and Falsehoods. 189

And the following in Grant's Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 323, is
significant :

"During August, 1864, Halleck informed me that there
was an organized scheme on foot to resist the draft, and
that it might be necessary to withdraw troops from the field
to put it down."

McClure says :

"There was no period from January, 1864, until Sep-
tember 3 when McCIellan would not have defeated Lincoln
for President."

Secretary of War Stanton, when at death's door, said to
General Piatt:

"When Lincoln visited the camps fears were felt at
headquarters that the soldiers would insult him, and orders
were issued to cheer the President when he appeared."

Yet it now suits Republicans to pretend that Lincoln was
almost adored during his life.

The soldiers must have had very bitter feelings toward Lin-
coln, if in a time like that they felt like insulting him. Though
half fed, though ragged, though many were shoeless and nearly
all tentless, the soldiers of the South would have received their
President at any time with acclamations of joy.

Stanton also said to Piatt:

"All the time our huge army lay coiled about Washing-
ton, a distrust of the Lincoln Government was insiduously
cultivated among the men."

Private soldiers are not fools ; while in the ranks under the
rule of officers, they dare not talk aloud, but they talk to each
other freely. The men in the ranks were not ignorant of Lin-
coln's treachery. They knew that in New York the conscript-
ing machines had been put in quarters where working men are
most numerous ; they knew that these machines had been put
in these districts where the Democratic votes went largely against
the administration ; they knew how the working men revolted
against this injustice, how they rose and wrecked the houses in
which the cursed drafting machines were at work. The private
soldiers had enough to resent and did resent. The millions paid
in pensions have sealed their lips. Money seals the lips of the
G. A. R. on the wrongs of the war.

iQo Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 27

B. F. Butler, whose very soul delighted in despotic meas-
ures, in his book says:

"During the whole war the Lincoln Government was
rarely aided, but was usuall}' impeded by the decisions of
the Supreme Court, so that President Lincoln was obliged
to suspend the writ of habeas cori)us in order to relieve
himself of the rulings of the court."

In 1862 Benjamin R. Curtis, of the Supreme Court, wrote
and published a little work showing Lincoln's usurpations,
entitled: "Executive Power."

"The President," said Judge Curtis, "has made him-
self a legislator. He has enacted penal laws governing
citizens of the United States. He has superadded to his
rights as commander the power of a usurper. He has es-
tablished a military despotism. He can now use the au-
thority he has assumed to make himself master of our lives,
our liberties, our properties, with power to delegate his mas-
tership to such satraps as he may select."

If this be true, and no man has or can deny it, Lincoln was
guilty of a crime blacker than Benedict Arnold's. Yet, mark
how mildly Judge Curtis talks of that crime. He says, "President
Lincoln can now use the authority he has usurped." Curtis, as
every man in the Northern States, well knew that Lincoln at that
time was using his usurped powers every day of his life. Lalor's
Encyclopedia states that the records of the Provost Marshal's
office in Washington show that 38,000 political prisoners filled
the bastiles of America. These men were accused of no crime,
of no offense known to the law of the land. They were Dem-
ocrats. All Democrats were "suspects." Stanton and Seward
were commissioned by Lincoln to arrest and imprison "suspects."
Rhodes thinks Lalor's estimate of 38,000 is exaggerated, but
when one considers it was the nature of Seward and Stanton to
revel in the use of power, and that nf^ither of t^i^^se men ever
gave one sign of possessing the quality of mercy, pity or justice,
one can more easily believe that Lalor underrates more than over-
rates the number of victims. To show how strangely a worship
of dead or living despots demoralizes the human mind, I ofifer
the following comments on Judge Curtis' little work, "Executive
Power." made by John T. Morse, aiithor of LiiT^oln in one of the
American Statesmen "series," pubHshed in 1892:

"It was unfortunate," says Mr. Morse, "that the country
should hear such phrases launched by a Chief Justice against
deeds' done under the order of the President."

Chap. 27 Facts and FAT.SF.TTonns. 191

Had it come to this, that an American President's illegal
deeds shall not be criticised?' Does Mr. Morse think it ric^ht to
conceal Presidential acts from the country, from the people ? This
is indeed imperial practice.

In reply to the people's outcry against illegal arrests, Lin-
coln argued that he had the right. His arguments were as fal-
lacious and as shallow as any second rate lawyer's hired to de-
fend a bad case. Lincoln's defense of his crime only made it
the more odious. Some daring man had the courage to criticise.
Of this, Morse coolly remarks :

"It was undesirable to confute the President's logic on
this question."

In his History of the United States, Rhodes frankly says:
"Mr. Lincoln stands responsible for the casting into
prisons citizens of the United States on orders as arbitrary
as the letrcs dc cachet of Louis XIV. of France, instead of
their arrest, as in Great Britain in her crisis, on legal war-
rants."

Lincoln himself boasted that he was responsible for all arbi-
trary arrests and imprisonments. He alone was the foundation of
power. On page 232, Vol. 3, of Rhodes' History, he remarks :

"Mr. Lincoln's extra judicial proceedings were inexpe-
dient, unnecessary, wrong, yet the great principles of lib-
erty up to the present time have not been invalidated."

The despotism of that time has so demoralized men's minds,
many men seem now ready to welcome the advent of any coming
despot. In an article published February, 1903, in Scribiicr's
Magazine, Mr. Rhodes too plainly shows the deep demoraliza-
tion of his own mind on the question of human liberty. Rhodes
says:

"Mr. Lincoln assumed extra legal powers, at the same time
trying to give to those illegal acts the color of legality. Lin-
coln has made a precedent which future riders will imitate.
What Lincoln excused and defended will be assumed as the
right for rulers to follow."

Mr. Rhodes' judgment is so demoralized by the worship of a
despot he sees no danger in the precedent set by Lincoln of usurp-
ing power. Not so with wiser heads. The Supreme Court saw
and bemoaned the danger.

"Wicked men," said that court, when rendering its de-
cision on the Millegan case, "ambitious of power, with con-

192 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 27

tempt of law in their hearts, may fill the place once occupied
by Washington and Lincoln, and if the right of arbitrary ar-
rests and other extra judicial acts is conceded, the dangers
to human liberty are frightful to contemplate."

Why did that court couple the names Washington and Lin-
coln together? The one a respecter of law, the other a law-
breaker of the most unscrupulous stripe? Was that court truck-
ling to the despotism that ruled the land ? Was it afraid to speak
out boldly, and denounce Lincoln as the most dangerous law
breaker America has produced? To laud, to condone the crime
of breaking laws, of usurping authority, is to invite the recur-
rence of despotism, is to encourage wicked men to follow in Lin-
coln's footsteps, and make themselves, as Judge Curtis said, "the
masters of our lives, our liberties, our properties."

Rhodes remarks :

"It is an interesting fact that the ruler (Mr. Rhodes
seems to be fond of the word ruler) of a Republic which
sprang from a resistance to the English King and Parlia-
ment, should exercise more arbitrary power than any Eng-
lishman since Oliver Cromwell, and that many of his acts
should be worthy of a Tudor."

Many were worthy of the most despotic Caesar that ever
ruled Rome. To the lovers of freedom, the fact Mr. Rhodes calls
"interesting" is more alarming than interesting. It shows how
easy wicked men, if in high office in this country, can overthrow
civil law and rob the people of every right they possess. It fur-
ther shows how men are prone to fall at the feet of usurpers and
worship.

Even in the darkest days of Lincoln's rule there were men of
his own party who were less tolerant of despotism than modern
Republican writers. The New York Post, a Republican paper,
had the courage to disapprove of and to denounce arbitrary ar-
rests and imprisonments of men for criticizing Lincoln's despotic
acts.

"No government," said the Poi, "and no authorities
are to be held as above criticism, or e , cu denunciation. We
know of no other way of correcting ti^nr faults, of restrain-
ing their tyrannies, than" by open and bold discussion."

There was no lack in the 6o's of mean and contemptible souls
eager and ready with open arms to embrace despotism, as there
is now no lack of despot-loving men to beckon on the coming

Chap. 2^ Facts and Falsehoods. 193

of despotism. E. C. Ingersoll, candidate for Congress during
Lincoln's life, in a public speech, joyously announced the advent
of despotism and the overthrow of American liberty, using the
following words :

"President Lincoln is now clothed with power as full as
that of the Czar of Russia. It is now necessary for the peo-
ple of this country to become familiar with that power and
with Lincoln's right to use it."

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher welcomed despotism with
a broad, smiling face and open arms. In a public address this
so-called follower of the Christ, who taught the Democratic doc-
trine of equal rights, spoke as follows:

"I know it is said President Lincoln is not the Govern-
ment, that the Constitution is the Government. What! A
sheep-skin parchment a government ! President Lincoln and
his Cabinet are now the Government, and men have now
got to take their choice whether they will go with their Gov-
ernment or against it. '

It would have been more correct had Beecher said, "Men
have now to choose whether they will go with Mr. Lincoln or \a
some dungeon cell." Before Lincoln established despotic rule,
how differently men felt and spoke of American liberty, of the
danger of losing it. Daniel Webster warned the people against
executive power.

"The contest," said Webster, "for ages has been to res-
cue liberty from executive power. On the long list of the
champions of human freedom, there is not one name dimmed
by the reproach of advocating the extension of executive
authority. Through all the histories of the contests for
liberty, executive power has been regarded as the lion that
must be caged, it has always been dreaded as the great ob-
ject of danger. Our security lies in our watchfulness of
executive power. I will not trust executive power to keep
the vigils of liberty. Encroachments must be resisted at
every step. We are not to wait till great mischief comes,
till the Government is overthrown or liberty put in extreme
jeopardy. We would be unworthy sons of our fathers were
we to so regard questions affecting freedom."

Where were the worthy sons of our fathers in the 6o's ? Many
were immured in the Northern bastiles. Those in the South were
in the ranks bravely fighting to drive back Lincoln's invading

194 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 27

legions — legions sent down on a free people to kill, conquer or
annihilate.

Before Lincoln rushed on carnage, while Greeley in the col-
umns of his Tribune was doing his best to prevent that awful
crime, the Boston Atlas was doing its best to spur Lincoln on to
make the rush. The following is a specimen of the Atlas' tone.
temper and ferocity:

"Draw the sword ! Throw away the scabbard ! Hurl
100.000 men on the South to subjugate. Let us never cease
until South Carolina is a desert, a desolate land sown with
salt, that every passer-by shall wag his head."

Why this worse than human hate? Why this fiercer than
tiger's rage ? Carolina had only done what the Republican party
had long wanted her to do, had invited her to do. Soon after
Carolina's secession, in a speech, Wendell Phillips said :

"No man has a right to be surprised at this state of
things. It is just what we disunionists have attempted to
bring about. Thank God disunion has come at last!"

Was it possible as the war progressed that these men forgot
their own advocacy of disunion? If they remembered how could
they justify their insane hate of a people whose only crime was
defending themselves against armed invaders?

It has been said a thousand times that had Mr. Lincoln lived
through his second term there would have been for the conquered
South no horrors of the so-called reconstruction period. 'A care-
ful study of Mr. Lincoln's real, not his apotheosized, character
will not warrant that conclusion. Let the reader consider the fol-
lowing facts and judge for himself:

1st. Before Air. Lincoln came into Presidential power he
had openly, from the floor of Congress, declared the right of se-
cession and the right of the South to secede and to , form an
independent government of her own.

2nd. After Mr. Lincoln became President and held in his
hands the reins of all the government machincr\'. at the insti-
gation of such soulless men as Medill of Chicago, Senator Chan-
dler of Michigan, Seward of New York, and the urgency of such
South-hating journals as the Chicago Tribune and Boston Atlas,
he not only turned his back on his own publicly proclaimed prin-
ciples of right, but turned his back on the principles and issues
of his own party, which had been delivered from a thousand ros-
trums since the organization of his party in 1854.

Chap. 2"/ Facts and Falsehoods.

195

3rd. Yielding to the influence of bloody-minded men and
journals, Mr. Lincoln inaugurated the most unnecessary, cruel,
wicked war of the Nineteenth Century.

Never will it be forgotten that Medill of the Chicago Trib-
une bears witness to the awful fact that Mr. Lincohi began the
war of conquest on the South. Never will it be forgotten that
Medill of the Chicago Tribune, as stated in Tarbell's Life of
Lincoln, testifies that in 1864 Abraham Lincoln said to him. in
the presence of Stanton, Secretary of War, and other public men
in high office :

"After Boston, Chicago has been the chief instrument
in bringing this war on the country. It is you, Medill, who
is largely responsible for making blood flow as it has. You
called for war until you got it. / have given it to you."

Great God ! What a confession is this ! In all the black

and bloody calendar of crime did ever man before confess him-
self openly of so stupendous a crime as this? "You, Medill,
called for zvar until you got it. I hai'C given it to you."

And this when these very men had proclaimed and promul-
gated the lie that the South began the war ; this when the South
had prayed for peace and an equitable settlement of their part-
nership affairs. When this confession issued from Lincoln's
lips blood was still flowing like water on battlefields, the rivers
in the South were still running red with the heart's blood of
brave men of the North and of the South. A thousand hos-
pitals in both lands were filled with wounded, mutilated, dying,
pain-racked soldiers^ and the air all over America was thick and
sick with the wailings of war-made widows and war-made or-
phans. Oh, if the men who so wantonly begun that war had
human hearts in their breasts, what anguish of remorse must
have wrung and stung their consciences ! Yet nowhere have
I found any evidence that remorse touched them for their awful*
crime. It is recorded that Lincoln suffered intense anxiety when
the success of his wicked scheme of conquest seemed doubtful,
but when victory appeared in sight his joy was unalloyed by
any thought of the awful price paid for it. The men who best
knew Lincoln testify that the suffering of his own soldiers gave
him little or no personal concern. In Lamon's Life of Lincoln,
page 344, he says:

"Lincoln's compassions could be stirred deeply by an
object present, but never by an object absent and unseen.
Mr. Lincoln was not an ardent sympat:hizer with suffering

196 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 27

of anv sort which he did not witness with the eye of the
flesh."

In view of the fact that Mr. Lincoln was of so plastic a na-
ture as to be easily induced to plunge the country into war by
such men as Medill and Chandler of Michigan, is it not likely had
he lived through his second term the Medills and Chandlers would
as easily have induced him to pursue their vindictive and tigerish
policy toward the South ? President Johnson was in favor of the
pacific policy it is said that Lincoln intended, but the Republican
leaders in a body opposed him, and came near deposing him from
power. Though impeachment failed, the Presidential authoritv
was so curtailed, Johnson's administration was crippled, but iii
spite of the leaders, Johnson showed some mercy to the South.
He made himself in some degree a break-water to hold back the
malignant tide of hate which the remorseless Republican leaders
were almost frantic to roll over the people of the South. Their
plan to confiscate the land of the Southern whites and divide it
into fortv-acre lots, and give a lot to every negro man in the South,
was never carried out.

When the people in the Northern States became alarmed at
President Lincoln's bold usurpation of power and began to loud-
ly murmur at his arbitrary arrests of influential citizens and their
imprisonment in distant forts, John W. Forney, Secretarv of
the Senate and close friend of Lincoln's, through the Philadelphia
Press, spurred on Lincoln to further outrages on the people's lib-
erties. As a sample of Forney's advice, I give the following from
the Philadelphia Press:

"Silence everv tongue ; seal every mouth that does not
speak with respect of our cause (conquest of the South)
and of our flag. Let us cease to talk of safeguards, of laws
and restrictions, of dangers to liberty."

In Bancroft's Life of Seward, published in 1899, he gives
some account of Mr. Seward's illegal arrests. On page 276, Ban-
croft says :

"Arbitrary arrests and imprisonments were made to
prevent, rather than to Hmish treason. Of course it would
have been unsafe to he frank about such a thing"

Despots never think it safe to be frank about their deeds of
despotism. Men were not arrested and imprisoned for what
they had done, but for what possibly they might cio, On tbis
Mr. Bancroft complacently remarks:

Chap. 2y Facts and Falsehoods. 197

"There is no occasion, however, to apologize for arbitra-
ry arrests."

None in the world. Nobody wants apolos^ies. What is
wanted is hatred, deep, deadly, undying-, ineradicable, red-hot,
holy hatred of despotism, not apologies.

Mr. Bancroft says:

"The least excusable feature of these arrests was the
treatment of the prisoners. Month after month they were
crowded together in gloomy, damp casemates, where even
the dangerous pirates captured on the South's privateers
(the South had no pirates) and the soldiers taken in battle
ought not to have remained long. Many had committed
no overt act. Many were editors and politicians of good
character and honor. It (the power to make illegal ar-
rests) offered rare opportunities for the gratification of per-
sonal enmity and the display of power by United States
Marshals and military officers. Seward cannot be blamed
for this."

Bancroft here assumes that Seward, Stanton and Lincoln
were not as likely to abuse the power of arrest as United States
Marshals and military officers. The assumption is worthy of
a simpleton. Every arrest ordered by Seward. Stanton and Lin-
coln was inspired by personal or political spite. These three
men were peculiarly vindictive toward any man they even sus-
pected of opposing their cruel war policy. General Piatt, who
well knew this triumvirate of despots, said of two of them :

"Seward and Stanton fairly rioted in the enjoyment of
power. They reveled in the use of power. Stanton was
more vindictive in his dislikes than any man ever called to
public station."

Were men of this pagan nature fit to hold absolute power
over the liberties and lives of their fellow creatures? Yet to
these two unscrupulous, unfeeling men, Lincoln deputed the
rule he had usurped over the people of the Northern Stateis.

"No man," remarks the simple Bancroft, in his Life of
Seward, "will deny that Mr. Seward sought and was given
too much responsibility."

This is exactly what the writer of this does deny. Respon-
sibility means the state of being answerable for a trust. Neither
Lincoln, Seward or Stanton sought to be or desired to be an-
swerable to any person or power for any trust they assumed.

198 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 2y

They were not answerable. On the contrary, they sought and
desired to exercise the powers they wrested from the people
without accotmtability to mortal or inimortal being-.

In Vol. 2, page 254, of Mr. Bancroft's Life of Seward, he
sagely says :

"Some of the features of these arbitrary arrests bore
a striking resemblance to the odious institution of the ancient
regime in France — the bastile and the Ictrcs dc cachet."

Were Mr. Bancroft called on to describe two peas as like
each other as peas can be, he would look from one to the other,
gravely reflect, then solemnly sa\ :

"Some of the features of this pea bear a striking resem-
blance to some of the features of this other pea."

"The person arrested." says Mr. Bancroft, "was usually
seized at night. It was found best to take prominent men far
from friends and sympathizers. They were usually taken
to Fort Warren or other remote ])laces. In some cases from
one to three months elapsed before the case of the arrested
man was looked at. As a rrl? nrisoners were not told whv
they were arested. The arrested men were deprived of their
valuables, money, watches, rings, etc., and locked up in
casemates usually crowded with men who had similar ex-
periences. If any prisoner wished to send for relatives,
friends, or an attorney, they were told that any prisoner who
sought the aid of an attorney would greatly prejudice his
case. Appeals to Seward. Lincoln or Stanton a second,
third or fourth time were all useless."

In conclusion, Mr. Bancroft naively remarks :

"There is, however, nothing to indicate that Mr. Sew-
ard was fond of keeping men in prison."

It would be interesting to know what facts and acts would
afford such indication to men of the Bancroft sort. Roman
histor_\- relates that after a long life spent in evil deeds, in his
sullen old age, the Emperor Tiberius left Rome and secluded
himself in the Island of Capri, off the coast of Southern Italy.
Either to relieve the tedium of time or to keep up the practice
of cruelty, the Emperor would order his guard to seize any fish-
erman or peasant, or other passer-by. and summarily ])itch him
from the highest clifif into the deep sea below. The unfortunate
man was either drowned in the sea or torn to pieces on the jut-
ting and jagged rocks as he fell. This done, the Emperor would

Chap. 28 Facis wn Falsehoods.

199

I)]aciilly return Xo llic privacy of his palace, and the ne.Kt day as
he took his niorniui.'; constitutional, if he happenetl to see an-
other unfortunate man passinj^ by, the kind-hearted old Emperor
would gently order him pitched over the cliff in the same way.
Were Mr. Bancroft writing the life of Tiberius, after relating
the above little incidents, after describing the cries of the poor
wretches as they fell from one jutting rock to another, down to
the deep sea, Mr. Bancroft would amiably remark :

"There is nothing, however, to indicate that Tiberius

was fond of ordering men thrown over steep cliffs to certain

death."

On August 8, 1862, Stanton issued an order under which
many thousand men were kidnaped, hurried off to the nearest
military post or depot, and i)laced on military duty. The expense
of the arrest, the conveyance to such post, also the sum of five dol-
lars reward to the men who made the arrest, were deducted from
the arrested man's poor pay while serving in the ranks. Is it
any wonder that, as Stanton told Piatt, there was great dissatis-
faction in the Union army, and great dislike of Lincoln among
the common soldiers?

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Lincoln's Eagerness for Second Term. He is Elected by the use
of the Army. B. F. Butler's Story. The Crime of the Cen-
tury. Kepubliaiu JJ'rifcrs Unlit I'cachcrs of .iincrican Boys.
The Fox's Skin.

Many men of this day fancy Lincoln's election to a second
term proves that he was the people's choice, and was trusted
and beloved by the people. In this busy age few men have
the time to look below the surface and find facts. Some of
Lincoln's apotheosis biographers boldly assert that Lincoln
was indifferent about his re-election. Others deem it better to tell
the plain truth on this question. Lamon says during his first
term he was all the time anxious to secure re-election.
In his Life of Lincoln, McClure says:

"Lincoln's desire for re-nomination was the one thing
uppermost in his mind during the third year of his first
term."

In "Our Presidents," page 184, McClure says:

2CXD Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 28

"A more anxious candidate I have never seen. I could
hardly treat with respect Lincoln's anxiety about his re-
nomination,"

After Lincoln's nomination for the second term, but before
eieclion, the prospects of his re-election became very gloomy.
Many of Lincoln's friends predicted the success of McQel-
lan. Mr. Lincoln himself was almost in despair of re-elec-
tion. In Vol. I, on this subject, Morse has this:

"In Lincoln's party the foremost men, as the time ap-
proached for a second term, so strongly opposed Lincoln
they determined to prevent his re-election. They called a
convention to be held May 21, 1864, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The call said: 'Republican Liberty is in danger. The ob-
ject of this call is to arouse the people, and make them real-
ize that while we are saturating Southern soil with the best
blood of the country in the name of Liberty, we have really
parted with it at home.' "

Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln, Vol. 2, page 249, says :

"By August, 1864, Weed, Raymond and everyone, even
Lincoln himself, despaired of his re-election. Raymond,
Chairman of the Republican National Executive Commit-
tee, August 22, 1864, wrote Lincoln: T hear but one report.
The tide is setting against us.' "

In "Our Presidents," page 183, McClure says:

"Three months after Lincoln's renomination in Bal-
timore, his defeat by General McClellan was feared by his
friends and conceded by Lincoln himself. Wade of Ohio,
and Winter Davis, aided by Greeley, published in Greeley's
Tribune, August 5, 1864, their bitter manifesto against Lin-
coln, in which they charged him with having committed a
more studied outrage on the authority of the people than
had ever before been perpetrated."

In Holland's Life of Lincoln, he says:

"After Mr. Lincoln's nomination for a second term, a
peculiar change came over the spirit of Mr. Lincoln's friends ;
the thought became prevalent that a mistake had been made ;
simultaneously and universally the friends of the Adminis-
tration felt he ought not to have been nominated for a sec-
ond term,"

Morse, in Vol. 2, says: '

Chap. 28 Facts and Falsehoods. 201

"Recent local elections in New York and Massachusetts
showed a striking reduction of Republican strength."

In "The True Story of a Great Life," Weik states that Wen-
dell Phillips made stump speeches over New England denouncing
Lincoln, and holding him up to public ridicule. At Cooper In-
stitute, 1864, before an immense audience, Phillips said:

"Lincoln has overthrown Liberty. I call on the people
to rise in their might and see to it that Lincoln is not elected
to a second term."

On August 14, Greeley wrote :

"Mr. Oncoln is already beaten. He cannot be re-elect-
ed. We must have another ticket to save us from utter over-
throw. Grant, Butler or Sherman would do for President."

Chase, Winter Davis, Wade of Ohio, Governor Andrew of
Massachusetts, were in sympathy with the movement to prevent
Lincoln's re-election. The editor of the Cincinnati Gazette
wrote :

"The people regard Mr. Lincoln's candidacy as a mis-
fortune. I do not know a Lincoln man. In all our corres-
pondence, which is large and varied, are few letters from
Lincoln men."

The New York Sun said:

"The withdrawal of Lincoln and Fremont, and the nom-
ination of a man who would inspire confidence, would be
hailed with delight."

In his apotheosized Life of Lincoln, Holland bears witness
to the strong and general dissatisfaction of the people in 1864,
and their desire for a change. Fremont's name was the rallying
cry with dissatisfied Republicans. Fremont boldly denounced
Lincoln. . ' ■ -i^. ^*^

"Had Mr. Lincoln," said Fremont, "remained faithful
to the principles he was elected to defend, no schism could
have been created, and no contest against him could have
been possible. The ordinary rights secured under the Con-
stitutions have been violated. The Administration has man-
aged the war for personal ends, and with incapacity and self-
ish disregard for constitutioanl rights, with violaton of per-
sonal liberty and liberty of the press."

Miss Tarbell, who seems to have written her Life of Lin-
coln while on her knees before his image in a sacred shrine, says :

202 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 28

"In the spring of 1863 a plot was formed and favored
by all the most prominent Republican leaders to force Pres-
ident Lincoln to abdicate, and to put Vice-President Hamlin
in his place. Greeley thought he could use such pressure on
Lincoln as would force him to step down and out. Lincoln
knew of this plot. Mr. Enos Clark states that in the inter-
view President Lincoln had with the committee of seventy
men from Missouri^ in 1863.. at the moment the committer
was about to leave he saw tears streaming down Lincoln's
face. On getting to the door Mr. Clark looked back, and
instead of tears, Lincoln was laughing heartily and joking."

— Tarbell, Vol. IL, p. 176.

This committee of seventy was anti-Lincoln. Next day
Secretary of the Treasury Chase gave the committee a reception,
and told them he was heartily in sympathy with their mission.
The committee went to New York and was given a great and
enthusiastic meeting at Cooper Institute. William Cullen Bry-
ant made a speech, and various distinguished men indulged in
violent denunciation of the Administration and threatened Lin-
coln with revolution.

—Tarbell, Vol. II., p. 178.

In 1863 the New York Herald advocated Grant for tlie Pres-
idency. The great majority of the Republican leaders wanted
a change. Lincoln knew of all these efforts.

"The despair, the indignation of the country in this
dreadful year (1863) all centered on Lincoln. The Republi-
cans were hopeless of re-electing him. Amid this dreadful
uproar of discontent, one cry alarmed Lincoln — the cry that
Grant should be presented for the Presidency."

— Tarbell, Vol. II. , p. 199.

Leonard Sweet, a loving friend of Lincoln, August, 1864,
in a letter from New York City to his wife, wrote:

"The fearful things in relation to this country induced
me to stay a week. The malicious foes of Lincoln are get-
ting up a Buffalo convention to supplant him. They are
Sumner, Wade, Plenry Winter Davis, Chase, Fremont, Wil-
son, etc. The most fearful things are probable. Democrats
preparing to resist the draft. There is not much hope ; unless
material changes, Lincoln's re-election is beyond any possi-
ble hope, and is probably clear gone now."

Chap. 28 Facts and Falsehoods. 203

Lincoln himself believed he would be defeated. On August
23. 1864. Lincoln, fully understanding the danger, put on record
his belief that he would be defeated. In a speech bitterly de-
nouncing Lincoln at a Republican meeting in Boston, Wendell
Phillips went so far as to say, "Lincoln and his Cabinet are
treasonable. Lincoln and Stanton should be impeached."

The Chicago Tribune denounced Lincoln as the author of
the negro riots. So eager was -Lincoln for a second term, so
intense his anxiety, it showed in his face. Miss Tarbell de-
scribes his looks during that period, 1863-4:

"Day by day," says Miss Tarbell, "he grew more hag-
gard, the lines in his face deepened, it became ghastly gray
in color. Sometimes he would say, T shall never be glad
again.' When victory was assured a change came at once.
His form straightened up, his face cleared ; never had he .
seemed so glad."

Yet in the face of all this evidence of Lincoln's unpopular-
ity, it now suits Republicans to assert that Lincoln was trusted
and beloved during his lifetime.

Such being the gloom}- outlook for the Republican party
immediately preceding the Presidential election of 1864, what
brought about the change? What lifted from Lincoln's heart
its load of despair, and filled it with hope? The answer is easy.
First came a few L^nion victories, which indicated that the poor
Confederates were failing for want of numbers. Farragut capt-
ured Mobile, Sherman was taking a holiday march over the
South, burning and pillaging to his heart's delight, no armed men
to impede his progress ; Sherman's unresisted entrance into At-
lanta, Ga., his brilliant victory over the 15.000 xmarmed women
and children of that unfortunate city, his splendid strategic
feat in driving at the point of the bayonet the 15,000 Atlanta
women and children out of their homes, out of the city — out into
the pathless woods to wander about shelterless, foodless, and
after Atlanta w^as tenantless, its streets all silent save where armed
men trampled over them, Sherman's magnificent success in burn-
ing every house in the city, private as well as public — these valiant
deeds of Sherman's army served to expel the despair from Lin-
coln's head and let in fresh breezes of hope. In addition he had
General B. F. Butler and others of that calibre ready and willing
to do his bidding, regardless of honor or honesty. In his book
Butler relates how he obeyed orders, and, bv the use of soldiers,
secured Lincoln's election for a second term.

204 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 28

Oh, if the souls of liberty-loving men of 'y6 take cognizance
of the workings of affairs in the land they loved, and many died to
free, how must they mourn over the decadence of the men of this
age — the men who glorify the shameful fact that an American
President procured his re-election to office by the use of the Unit-
ed States army at the polls! Hapgood's Life of Lincoln con-
tains the following unblushing paragraph :

"Charles A. Dana testifies that the whole power of the
War Department was used to secure Lincoln's re-election in
1864. There is no doubt but this is true. Purists may
turn pale at such things, but the world wants no prettiiied
portrait of Mr. Lincoln. Lincoln's Jesuitical ability to use
the fox's skin when the lion's proves too short was one
part of his enormous value."

Think of it, men of America ! "Jesuitical ability to trick, to
deceive, to rob the people of their right to the ballot is, by a mod-
ern Republican historian, not only condoned, but commended
as of ''enormous value." And any honest man, shocked at so infa-
mous an outrage on the rights of freemen, the Republican, Hap-
good, sarcastically terms "purist." "Purists may turn pale," etc.
In his book, published in 1892, General Butler proudly relates his
part in the infamous work of using the army at the polls. The
story is this: The election day was November 8, 1864. Lincoln
had sent agents to New York City to spy out and report how the
election would go. The report boded ill for Lincoln's success ;
in fact, indicated that New York would give a large majority for
General McClellan. Lincoln, Seward and Stanton were alarmed.
The latter instantly telegraphed General Butler to report to him
at once. Butler rushed to Washington, and Stanton explained
the situation at New York.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Butler.

"Start at once for New York, take command of the De-
partment of the East, relieving General Dix. I will send you
all the troops you need."

"But," returned Butler, "it will not be good politics to
relieve General Dix just on the eve of election."

"Dix is a brave man," said Stanton, "but he won't do
anything ; he is very timid about some matters."

This meant that General Dix was too honorable to use the
United States Army to control and direct elections.

"Send me," suggested the shrewd Butler, "to New York
with President Lincoln's order for m^ to relieve Dix in my

Chap. 28 Facts and Falsehoods. 205

pocket, but I will not use the order until such time as I think
safe. I will report to Dix and be his obedient servant, and
coddle him up until I see proper to spring- on him my order,
and take supreme command myself."

"Very well," assented Stanton ; "I will send you Massa-
chusetts troops."

"Oh, no!" objected the shrewder Butler, "it won't do for
Massachusetts men to shoot dozvn Nezv Yorkers."

Stanton saw this also would be bad politics, so Grant was
ordered to send Western troops — 5,000 good troops and two
batteries of Napoleon guns — for the purpose of shooting down
New Yorkers should New Yorkers persist in the evil intention
of voting for McCIellan.

When the citizens of New York saw Butler and his escort
proudly prancing their horses on the streets and saw the arrival
of 5,000 Western troops and the Napoleon guns, there was great
agitation and uneasiness over the city. Newspapers charged that
these warlike preparations were made to overawe citizens and
prevent a fair election. Butler was virtuously indignant at such
charges. General Sanford, commanding the New York State
militia, called on Butler and told him the State militia was strong
enough to quell any disturbance that might occur and he intended
to call out his militia division on election day. Butler arrogantly
informed General Sanford that he (Butler) had no use for New
York militia ; he did not know which way New York militia
would shoot when it came to shooting. General Sanford replied
that he would apply to the Governor of the State for orders.

"I shall not recognize the authority of your Governor,"
haughtily returned Butler. "From what I hear of Governor
Seymour I may find it necessary to arrest all I know who are
proposing to disturb the peace on election day."

Butler well knew he was the only man in the city who in-
tended to disturb the peace on election day. Butler's mean and
cowardly soul gleefully gloated over the power he possessed to
bully and insult the great State of New York, its Governor and
militia officers — power given him by Lincoln, whose orders he
had in his pocket to relieve General Dix, and take command of
the army under Dix, and hold himself ready on election day to
shoot down New York men at the polls to secure the re-election
of President Lincoln. On November 5th Butler issued Order No.
I, the purpose of which, he said —

2o6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 28

"Is to correct misrepresentations, soothe the fears of the
weak and timid and allay the nervousness of the ill-advised,
silence all false rumors circulated by men for wicked pur-
poses, and to contradict once for all false statements made to
injure the Government in the respect and confidence of the
people. The Commanding General," continues Butler,
"takes occasion to declare that troops have been detailed for
duty in this district to preserve the peace of the United States,
to protect public property, and insure calm and quiet elec-
tion."

The citizens of New York well knew that the above was one
tissue of falsehood ; they knew that Butler and his 5.000 Western
troops, his batteries and Napoleon guns, w-ere there to overawe
the people and force the re-election of Lincoln.

"The Commanding General," continues Order No. i,
"has been pained to see publications by some not too well in-
formed persons, that the presence of the troops of the United
States might by possibility have an effect on the free exercise
of the duty of voting at the ensuing election. Nothing is
further from the truth."

Who, knowing Butler's nature, does not picture to himself
the Mephistophelean smile which ornamented his visage as he
penned the above, and the following pretty falsehood:

"The soldiers of the United States are here especially to
see that there is no interference with the election."

If the reader cares to see the full text of this lying order he
can find it in Butler's book, page 1097.

On Nov. 7th, the day before the election, after Butler had
placed his troops and made all arrangements necessary to con-
trol the ballot, he wrote to Secretary of War Stanton a letter in
which he said :

"I beg leave to report that the troops have all arrived,
and dispositions made which will insure quiet. I enclose
copy of my order No. i, and trust it will meet your approba-
tion. I have done all I could to prevent secessionists from
voting, and think it will have some etTect."

Secessionists meant Democrats who chose to vote for Mc-
Clellan.

On page 760 of his book Butler describes how he disposed of
the troops to accomplish his purpose. On page 771 Butler gives
a joyful account of a reception at Fifth Avenue Hotel tendered

Ghap. 28 Facts and Falsehoods. 207

him in honor of his signal success in keeping Democrats from
voting. Full to bursting with pride, Butler made a speech to his
entertainers, explaining how. after the Union army had conquer-
ed the South, her people should be treated.

"Let us,"' said this willing and eager tool of despotic
power, "take counsel from the Roman method of carrying on
war."

The Roman method was to make slaves of all prisoners of
war ; to inflict upon them every cruelty pagan hearts could devise
"Let us," continued Butler, "say to our young men, 'look
to the fair fields of the sunny South for your reward. Go
down there in arms ; you shall have what you conquer, in
fair division of the lands, each man in pay for his military
service. We will open new land offices wherever our army
marches, dividing the lands of the rebels among our sol-
diers, to be theirs and their heirs forever. Rebels should no
longer be permitted to live in the land of the South, or any-
where in the boundaries of the United States. Let them go to
Mexico, or to the islands of the sea, or to a place I do not like
to name. I know of no land bad enough to be cursed with
their presence. Never should they live here again.

This pagan speech was so rapturously received by Butler's
audience, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (who a few years later
was tried and found guilty by all the world except those inter-
ested in whitewashing him, of breaking up the home of one of
his parishioners and blasting the reputation of that parishioner's
wife), made a speech highly lauding Butler's evil work and pagan
principles and naming him for the Presidencv in 1868. General
Whitmore followed Beecher in the same strain of eulogy, all of
which filled Butler to bursting with pride. But he sorrowfully
relates that these high laudations proved disastrous to all the
hopes he had cherished of promotion in the army. These fine
compliments, says Butler, and the grand receptions tendered —

"Were the most unhappy and unfortunate occurrences of
my life. I should at once have repudiated the honor intend-
ed. I should promptly have said : 'Gentlemen, you do me too
much honor. General Grant ought to be our next President
after Lincoln retires.' TJiat would have taken the sting out
of the whole affair. I could then have been put in command
of the Army of the Potomac, if I wished."

Butler no doubt thought his service in New York in keeping
Democrats from voting would be rewarded by promotion. As a
salve to his vanity he tries to have it appear that Grant's jealousy

2o8 Facts and F.\lsehoods. Chap. 28

interfered. Butler's vanity was immense. It shines out from
ever}' page of his hook.

In the year 1903. in the cit>- of St. Louis, Mo., two men of for-
eigji birth and from the lower ranks of life were found guilty of
having procured fraudulent naturalization papers for some of
their countrymen just arrived from Italy. These two men were
sentenced to serv^e a term of five years in the penitentiary. The
St. Louis Globe-Democrat, a stanch Republican journal, in an
editorial called the offense of which these two m.en were found
guilt}' —

"A horribly atrocious crime against the ballot box and
American citizenship."

Reader, compare the magnitude of the crime these two men
committed in 1903 with the magnitude of the crime committed in
1864 by the President of the United States. Is not the one as a
molehill to the mountain of the other? Yet the criminals of 1903
were condemned to wear the stripes of infamy in a State peni-
tentiary- for five years. The criminal of 1864 is held up as a
model for American youths to imitate.

The following are samples of telegraphic orders sent by Sew-
ard and Stanton to arrest innocent men :

"Telegram. Washington City, Sept. 14, 1861.

"United States Marshal :

"Arrest Leonard Sturtivant and send him to Ft. Lafay-
ette, New York. Deliver him into the custody of Col. ]Mar-
tin Burk.

"W. H SEWARD."

"Telegram.

"War Department. Washington. Oct. 19. 1861.
"Richard H. Dana, U. S. District Attorney:
"Send Wm. Pierce to Fort Lafavette.

"W. H. SEWARD."

"Telegram. "Washington, Sept. 2, 1864.

"United States Marshal:

"John W. Watson is ;n Boston, No. 2 Olive street. He
will to-day or to-night receive goods from Lawrence. New
York, probably nautical instruments, care of Winer & Son.
also clothes and letters from St. Denis Hotel. Watch him.
Look out for the clothes. Seize them. Arrest him at the
right time. (The right time was in the dead of night.) When
he is arrested don't let him see or communicate with anyone.

Chap. 29 Facts and Falsehoods. 209

Bring him at once to Washington. The letters and goods
must be seized by all means.

"E. M. STANTON."

In Rhodes' History of United States, page 468, is this item :

"The New York World and Journal of Commerce pub-
lished, innocently, a forged proclamation, purporting to be
Lincoln's. As soon as they discovered the mistake they
made adequate and apparently satisfactor}- explanations to
the authorities, but President Lincoln ordered the editor ar-
rested and imprisoned and the paper suppressed. A file of
soldiers seized the officers and held them until the order for
arrest was rescinded."

CHAPTER XXIX.

Mr. Vallandinghani's Case. Unhappy Conditions of Northern
Democrats. Lincoln's Public Declaration of Despotic Doc-
trines.

In 1863 Mr. Clement L. \'allandingham was the Democratic
nominee for Governor of the State of Ohio. Vallandingham was
an eloquent speaker and very popular in his own party. Being a
Democrat he naturally opposed despotism, and frequently com-
mented on Lincoln's illegal arrests and imprisonments. He also
censured Lincoln for refusing to permit the South's commis-
sioners, Mr. Holcomb and Mr. Clement C. Qay, to enter Wash-
ington and make some effort to end the war by diplomacy. This
greatly irritated Lincoln, Seward and Stanton. They became
eager to have \'allandingham arrested and cast into prison. For
some time the people had been greatly agitated and alarmed
about illegal arrests, but as the exercise of power was the soul's
delight of that triumvirate of despots, they could not deny them-
selves such pleasure. General Bumside was commander of a
large military force in Southern Ohio. It was made known to
him that the President would be much pleased if \"allandingham
was put where his voice could not be heard. Of course, Bum-
side was eager to please the President, who held the power of
promotion and dismissal from the anriy. A mass meeting of
Democrats was to be held May i, 1863, at Mount Vernon, Ohio.
It was widely advertised that Vallandingham would be the ora-
tor of the day. Bumside sent two of his soldiers in citizen's
clothes to hear \'allandingham*s speech, and to bring back a re-
port on which he could be arrested. Of course, Bumside's two

2IO Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 29

spies got what they were sent for. That night, or rather the
next morning at half past two o'clock, one hundred armed men
stole silently along the deserted streets of Dayton. Ohio, toward
the house in which \^allandingham lodged. Armed men were
deployed around the house to stand guard at every exit. Knock-
ing on the front door with the butt end of his pistol, the captain
of the company demanded admittance. On entering, a score or
more men tramped through halls and rooms until they came to
\'allandingham's bedchamber, where he lay fast asleep. "Get up
and dress," ordered the captain of the company, shaking the
sleeping man. "What's wanted?" asked A'allandingham, start-
ing up and rubbing his eyes. "You! Hurry! We take the next
train to Cincinnati." When dressed, one soldier seized \^alland-
ingham's right arm, another his left, and hurried him down to the
front door, where a carriage waited. He was rapidly driven to
the depot and soon on his way to Cincinnati, where he was closely
confined until May 6, then taken before a military court, put
through the farce of a trial, found guilty and sent to Fort War-
ren, Boston Harbor. Arrests of this arbitrary nature were made
every day, or rather every night, but this of \'allandingham
aroused more than ordinary indignation and alarm. Mass meet-
ings were held, eloquent speeches made in Ohio, New York and
other States. In the history of the long and woeful contest be-
tween Despotism and Democracy I know of no more pitiable con-
dition to which the latter has ever been reduced than that in which
the Democrats of the North found themselves under the rule
of the Republican party in the 60s. Sympathizing as they did
with the South, believing as they did that her cause was just, hat-
ing as they did the War of Conquest, yet feeling themselves un-
able openly to oppose and fight the mighty machinery of the Re-
publican Government, during all the four years' war Democrats
were subject to the insults, scoffs, gibes and taunts of Republi-
cans. They were denounced as disloyal, as rebels, as traitors, as
copperheads. They were liable any night to arrest and imprison-
ment. Thousands of their friends and relatives languished in
jails, and many died there. Some Democrats, hoping to escape
persecution, paid a haU-hearted homage to Lincoln, refrained
from criticism, afifected to rejoice at Republican successes ; but no
professions of loyalty to Lincoln and his measures saved them
from the scorn and contempt of the Republican party. Too well
that party knew it was not possible for any man with one par-
ticle of Democracy in his heart to believe in the conquest and
subjugation of free men, free States. In the very beginning of

Chap. 29 Facts \xn Falsf.tioods. 211

the war the Republican rulers had cast a lasso over the head of
Northern Democracy and tied it fast to the tail end of the great
juggernaut car. which, loaded with munitions of war, was sent
crashing over the Southern States, grinding under its wheels
every living thing in its pathway. Not until after Lee's sur-
render and after Lincoln's death did Xorthern Democracy shake
from its neck that humiliating thralldom.

All during the war the State of New York remained Demo-
cratic, yet was forced to render its full quota to aid a war it
knew was iniquitous. Nevertheless, having a Democratic Gov-
ernor, the people of New York felt that the air of their State
was somewhat less oppressive, to free men, than in some other
States. Hence, New York men were more outspoken. A mass-
meeting was held in Albany, New York, to discuss the Valland-
ingham outrage. Eloquent speeches were made denouncing Burn-
side's actions, an able address to President Lincoln was drawn
up, setting forth the fact that Burnside had violated the iaw of
the land ; that his arrest and trial of a civilian in a military court
when the civil courts of Ohio were in full and unrestrained opera-
tion, was an outrage, and deserved the severest reprehension, and
requested Lincoln to rescind Burnside's order to imprison Val-
landingham, release him from military custody and restore him
to freedom. The Albany address and Prei>ident Lincoln's reply
thereto being too lengthy for the limits of this work. I can only
give a few extracts from Mr. Lincoln's written reply to show the
<nen of this age with what cool, self-complacent conridence the
first American despot propounded the Caesarian doctrine of ab-
solute rule. Twenty of the first citizens of Albany were appointed
to go to Washington and present the address to the President. If
the reader desires to see the address and Lincoln's reply he can
find it in Carpenter's Logic of History.

In reply to the statement that the citizens of Ohio were
amenable to the laws of that State, and if charged with any viola-
tions of law Mr. \'allandingham should have been tried in a civil
court, President Lincoln wrote :

"Civil courts are organized for trials on charges of crime

well defined by law. A jury of the civil courts too frequently

has at least one member more ready to hang a panel than to

hang the traitor."

Men of America ! consider these words written by an Ameri-
can President. Daniel Webster objected to military courts be-
cause, as he said, "military courts are organized to convict." The
so-called humane Lincoln objected to civil courts because one

212 Facts and Falsehoods, Chap. 29

member of the jury might be more ready to hang the panel than
to hang the man ! Lincoln seems to assume that men arrested by
military officials must be guilty, therefore should have no chance
of escaping conviction by trial in a Civil court. Lincoln also ob-
jects to civil courts because they only convict on charges of crime
well defined by law. Military courts convict on the most frivolous
pretexts, or no pretext at all. The chief thing necessary to mili-
tary conviction is that some man in high place should desire the
man to be convicted and put out of his way. In the Albany ad-
dress reference was made to the suspension of the habeas corpus.
To this Mr. Lincoln replied as follows :

"The suspension of the habeas corpus was for the pur-
pose that men may be arrested and held in prison who cannot
be proved guilty of any defined crime "

Reflect on these words, O, you men of America ! You who
forget that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." You who,
with child-like innocence, rest in the belief that the future has no
dangers for American liberties. But even the above declaration
of Lincoln's is not the worst.

"Arrests," wrote President Lincoln to that Albany com-
mittee of Democrats, "are not made so much for what has
been done as for what possibly might be done. The man
who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Gov-
ernment is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hin-
dered (by arrest, imprisonment, or death) he is sure to help
the enemy."

Is it any wonder under rulings like this that 38,000 arbitrary
arrests threw 38,000 innocent -men and women into American bas-
tiles to languish for months or years, and many therein to die?

Under the above definition of treason as given by Lincoln,
what man was safe ? Is it any wonder a reign of terror existed in
the Northern States? Under Lincoln's definition silence became
an act of treason. A man with a sore throat, unable to talk aloud,
if he happened to be present when the Lincoln Government was
discussed, was liable to arrest and imprisonment in the most dis-
tant fortress in the land. Strange as this may appear to the
people of this age, blackly despotic as it certainly was, there was
still a lower deep of despotism, and President Lincoln fell into
that lower deep and dragged down with him the last shred of
freedom left to the people of the Northern States.

"Much more," wrote the President of the United States,
"if a man talks ambiguously, talks with 'buts' and 'ifs' and

Chap. 29 Facts and Falsehoods. 213

*ands' he cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by im-
prisonment or death) this man will actively commit treason.
Arbitrary arrests are not made for the treason defined in the
Constitution, but to prevent treason."

That is to prevent the sort of treason never before known
on earth — the treason of "ifs" and '"buts" and "ands" — the trea-
son made and invented by Abraham Lincoln, the first President of
the Republican party.

In "Recollections of the War," page 236, Charles A. Dana
records the arbitrary arrest, by order of President Lincoln, in one
day, of ninety-seven of the leading citizens of Baltimore, and
their imprisonment, mostly in solitary confinement. Not one of
these men had committed or was charged with having commit-
ted any offense known to the law of the land. Nor is there the
least evidence showing that any one of the ninety-seven men had
used the "ifs" and "ands" and "buts" so offensive to Mr. Lin-
coln's sensitive soul. The fear that thev might possibly at some
future time mutter or speak aloud the dangerous "ifs" and "buts"
and "ands" caused the arrest and imprisonment of the ninety-
seven men of Baltimore. In the darkest days of President Lin-
coln's despotic rule, Governor Seymour, of New York, had the
courage to condemn and denounce that rule. In a speech refer-
ring to arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, Seymour said :

"In Great Britain the humblest hut is to its occupant a
castle impregnable to the monarch. In our country the most
unworthy underling of power is licensed to break within the
sacred precincts of our homes and drag men out and cast
them in dungeon cells."

The men who wielded this power reveled in its possession.
Seward is the man who, with a sardonic smile, said to Lord
Lyons :

"My Lord, I can touch the bell at my right and order the
arrest of a man in Ohio ; I can again touch the bell and order
the arrest of a man in New York, and no power on earth save
that of the President can release them. Can the Queen of
England do as much ?"

"No," replied the astonished Englishman. "Were she to
attempt such an act her head would roll from her shoul-
ders."

These three men — Lincoln, Seward and Stanton — proudly
boasted that they held more power over the people of America

214 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 29

than any monarch since the reign of the Stuarts had wielded
over the Enghsh people. No man need be surprised at the Re-
publican party's open and insolent usurpation of power. A thou-
sand times had the speakers of that party publicly declared their
contempt and hatred of the Union, of the Constitution, of the
laws of the land.

The New York Evening Post reported that the great Repub-
lican preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, in a speech, said to his au-
dience :

"I believe that Sharp's rifle is a truly moral agency.
There is more moral power in one of these instruments than
in a hundred Bibles."

It was also reported that this same Beecher, on bidding fare-
well to some of his proteges about to start off for Kansas, told
them that to shoot at a Southern man and miss killing him would
be a crime.

Of such inestimable value to liberty did Daniel Webster es-
teem free speech, in an oration he said :

"Free speech is a home-bred right, a fireside privilege.
It is not to be drawn into any controversy. It is as undoubt-
ed as the right of breathing the air and walking the earth.
It is a right to be maintained in peace and in war. It is a
right which cannot be invaded without destroying constitu-
tional liberty. This right should be protected and guarded
by the freemen of this country with a jealous care unless
they are prepared for chains and anarchy."

To prevent honorable men from using this sacred and God-
given right Abraham Lincoln, the first American despot, caused
the illegal arrest and imprisonment of 38,000 free born men and
women. Thomas Jefferson said :

"Those to whom power is delegated should be held to a
strict accountability to their constitutional oath of office. The
plea of necessity is no excuse for a violation of such oath."
The "plea of necessity" is always put forward to excuse
the evil deeds of despots. Modern Republican writers laud Lin-
coln's violation of law and affect to hold him as a god above all
human laws.

Even John Adams, Federal though he was, opposed the use
of arbitrary power.

"The nature of encroachments on liberty and law," said
Adams, "is to grow every day more and more encroaching ;
like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour."

Chap. 29 Facts and Falsehoods. 215

Yet modern Republican writers admire and applaud Lin-
coln's encroachments. The conscience of the conquering party
has become so dulled, its reasoning faculties so befogged, its love
of liberty so weak, it sees no danger in the precedent set by Mr.
Lincoln. Yet that party well knows that no monarch of England
since the reign of the Tudors has dared play the despot as Lin-
coln did. Charles the First lost his head and James the Second
his throne for lesser crimes than the despot of the 6o's was
guilty of.

As illustrative of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar character I give the
following story : When almost in despair of re-election Lincoln
wrote General McClellan an autograph letter, which he sent by
Mr. Blair, proposing to pay him (McClellan) roundly if he would
withdraw from the canvass and leave the field clear for Lincoln's
running. The compensation Lincoln offered was the immediate
appointment of McClellan General of the army, and the appoint-
ment of McClellan's father-in-law, Mr. Marcy, Major General,
and the substantial recognition of the Democratic party. This
was a brilliant bait, but the fish did not bite. General McClellan
promptly refused. The story of the afifair is related in Lamon's
Recollections of Lincoln, edited by his daughter Dorothy. Mc-
Clellan was the chosen nominee of the Democratic party at that
time ; the times boded success to Democracy. Neither Lincoln or
Lamon seemed to perceive the baseness involved in the transac-
tion which Lincoln proposed. If Lincoln believed that McClellan
was the best man to be at the head of th-o army, Avas it not base to
make his appointment a matter of bargain and sale? Was not
Lincoln's ofifer to bribe McClellan to betray the trust his own
party had put in hftn when it nominated him for the Presidency
as gross an insult as one man could ofifer another? Instead of
seeing this, poor Lamon laments that General McClellan had not
the patriotism to accept Lincoln's offer.

Patriotism ! These men had ceased to know, if they ever had
known, the meaning of the word. To them it no longer meant
love of country. It only meant approbation of Lincoln's war of
conquest on the South. Lamon seems to have thought that Lin
coin had as much right to divide the power he wielded over thr
country as he had to divide an apple he was eating ; as much right
to bestow one-half of the power he had usurped as he would have
to give away half an apple he had bought. Lamon looked on
Lincoln's ofifer as most generous :

"The division," says Lamon, "of the Roman world
between the members of the triumvirate was not compara-

2i6 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 29

ble to the proposal of Lincoln to McClellan, because the Ro-
man was a smaller world than the American, and it (the
Roman world) was partitioned among three, while the Amer-
ican world was only to be halved."

Think of it, gentle reader! Think of any man outside of a
lunatic asylum fancying he had the right to look upon this great
country as his to divide and give away as he liked ! Poor I.amon
blamed General McClellan for not accepting "Lincoln's generous
offer." Before this occurred, Lincoln had tried to make a deal
with Governor Seymour. Lamon tells the story thus :

"The affairs of the country were in a very precarious
condition, and were daily and hourly growing worse, and time
was imperative. Mr. Lincoln had a telegram sent from
Washington to Governor Seymour requesting him to come
to Washington on very important business. Seymour declin-
ed, and added that the 'distance from Washington to
Albany was precisely the same as from Albany to Washing-
ton.' Lincoln then sent Thurlow Weed to Albany empower-
ed to make Seymour the following proposal :

" Tf Governor Seymour will withdraw his opposition to
the draft, and use his authority and influence as Governor in
putting down the riots in New York, and will co-operate in
all reasonable ways with the administration in the suppression
of the Southern rebellion, President Lincoln, on his part,
will agree fully and honestly to renounce all claims to the
Presidency for the second term, and will decline under any
circumstances to be a candidate for re-election, and will fur-
ther agree to throw his entire influence, in 'so far as he can
control it, in behalf of Horatio Seymour for President of the
United States.'"

— Lamon's Recollections of Lincoln, page 213.

Governor Seymour promptly declined. Was Lincoln's pro-
posal a trap to catch Seymour? Did Seymour remember the
nursery rhyme :

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly.
"It's the prettiest little parlor you ever did spy."

Did Seymour remember Vallandingham's case ? Vallanding-
ham had been arrested, tried and condemned for far less offense
to President Lincoln than Seymour had been guilty of. Was it
to arrest and silence Seymour that he was invited to visit Wash-
ington? At any rate Seymour was too prudent to be caught in a

Chap. 30 Facts and Falsehoods. 217

trap like that ; his answer to Lincohi's invitation, that "the dis-
tance to and from Washington to Albany was precisely the same,"
shows he was not without suspicion.

CHAPTER XXX.

Was the War Waged to Free Slaves? Lincoln on the Negro.
Van Buren. Lamon's Testimony. Wendell Phillips. Lin-
coln's Letter to Greeley. Sezvard's Indifference. Grant's
Feeling. Conway's Evidence.

Those who best know Mr. Lincoln assert that he not only
was indifferent to the future of the African race, but disliked
negroes as a race, and had little or no faith in their capability of
development. At no period of his life was he in favor of bestow-
ing upon them political or social equality with the white race.
General Don Piatt, a fervent Abolitionist, sounded Mr. Lincoln
on this question :

"I found," says Piatt, "that Mr. Lincoln could no more
feel sympathy for that wretched race than he could for the
horse he worked or the hog he killed. Descended from the
poor whites of the South, he inherited the contempt, if not the
hatred, held by that class for the negro."

In his Life of Lincoln, page 236, Lamon says, in 1846, in a
speech, Mr. Lincoln —

"Imputed to Van Buren, a Democrat, the great sin of
having voted in the New York State Convention for negro
suffrage with a property qualification. Douglas denied the
imputation, but Lincoln proved it to the injury of Van Bu-
ren."

On page 334 of Lamon's Life of Lincoln is this:

"None of Mr. Lincoln's public acts, either before or after
he became President, exhibit any special tenderness for the
African race, or commiseration of their lot. On the contrary
he invariably, in words and deeds, postponed the interest of
the negro to the interest of the whites. When from political
and military considerations he was forced to declare the free-
dom of the enemy's slaves, he did so with avowed reluctance ;
he took pains to have it known he was in no wise affected by
sentiment. He never at any time favored the admission of
negroes into the body of the electors in his State, or in the
States of the South. He claimed that those negroes set free

2i8 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 30

by the army were poor spirited, lazy and slothful ; that they
could only be made soldiers by force, and would not be ever
willing- laborers at all ; that they seemed to have no interest in
the cause of their own race., but were as docile in the service
of the rebellion as the mule that ploughed the fields or drew
the baggage trains. As a people, Lincoln thought negroes
would only be useful to those who were at the same time their
masters, and the foes of those who sought their good. He
wanted the negro protected as women and children are. He
had no notion of extending the privilege of governing to the
negro. Lincoln always contended that the cheapest way of
getting rid of the neg-ro was for the Nation to buy the slaves
and send them out of the country."

General Don Piatt says :

"Lincoln well knew that the North was not fighting to
free slaves, nor was the South fighting to preserve slavery.
In that awful conflict slavery went to pieces."

Lincoln himself gives testimony on this slavery question.
Herndon said when Lincoln issued the emancipation proclama-
tion there was no heart in it. Every one remembers Lincoln's
letter to Greeley, in which he frankly declared that whatever he
did for or with negroes, he did to help him save the Union ; that
is, to conquer the South.

"My paramount object," wrote Lincoln to Greeley, "is to
save the L^nion, and not either destroy or save slavery. If 1
could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do
it. If I could save the L'nion by freeing some and leaving
others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing
all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the color-
ed race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union."

Yet this man had been put in office by a party which hated
and despised the LT^nion. On another occasion Lincoln wrote:

"I have no purpose to introduce political or social equal-
ity between the white and black race. There is a phys-
ical difference between the two which probably will forever
forbid their living together on the same footing of equality.
I, as well as any other man, am in favor of the race to which
I belong having the superior position. I have never said any-
thing to the contrary."

Simon Cameron. Lincoln's first Secretary of War, wrote
General Butler, then in New Orleans :

Chap. 30 Facts and Falsehoods. 219

"President Lincoln desires the right to hold slaves to be
fully recognized. The war is prosecuted for the Union, hence
no question concerning slavery will arise."

In his inauguration Lincolri said:

"I have no lawful right to interfere with slavery directly
or indirectly; I have no inclination to do so."

Mr. Wendell Phillips said that Lincoln was badgered into
issuing the emancipation proclamation, and that after it was
issued, Lincoln said it was the greatest folly of his life. That
much lauded instrument speaks for itself. It plainly proves that
its writer had not the least heart in the business of freeing slaves.
Had he taken any joy in the work, would he have bestowed the
boon of freedom only on those negroes still under the rule of the
Confederacy, leaving the large number in those States and parts
of States under his own control in the bondage they were born in ?

When General Grant was Colonel of the Twenty-first Illi-
nois Infantry he expressed himself plainly on the negro question :

"The sole object of this war," said Grant, "is to restore
the Union. Should I become convinced it has any other ob-
ject, or that the Government designs using its soldiers to exe-
cute the wishes of the Abolitionists, I pledge you my honor
as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and
carry my sword to the other side."

— Democratic Speaker's Handbook, p. 33.
On May 29, 1863, Mr. F. A. Conway, Congressman from
Kansas, wrote to the New York Tribune, as follows:

"The independence of the South is now an established
fact. The war for the future becomes simply an instrument
in the hands of the political managers to effect results to their
own personal ends unfavorable to the cause of freedom. It is
now assumed that the Union is the object paramount over
every other consideration. Every institution is now of small
importance. Slavery must give way, or not give way ; must
be strangled, or given new lease of life with increased power,
just as the exigencies of the North may require. This has
now become the doctrine of life-long Abolitionists. Gerritt
Smith, Raymond and other men want power and care for
nothing else. For tJie sake of pozver they zvould kill all the
white people in the South, or take than to their arms. They
would free all the slaves or make their bondage still more
helpless; they ivoidd do anything wicked for the sake of
power."

220 Facts and Falsehoods. ' Chap. 31

Never were truer words spoken or written than these by that
zealous Abolition Congressman Conway of Kansas. In Hern-
don's suppressed Life of Lincoln, he said :

"When Lincoln issued the proclamation to free the slaves
there was no heart in the act."

One of the boldest Republican organs, in 1880, the Lemars
(Iowa) Sentinel, frankly betrays its party's real feeling toward
the negro race, as follows :

"As an ofHce seeker, the negro has more brass in a square
inch of his face, more rapaciousness for office, than his
barbarian masters ever dared to possess. The Southern brig-
adier wants office and place, but he is willing to fight for
fhem, or vote for them; at the drop of the hat he will shoot
and cut for them ; he does not whine like a whipped cur, or
demand like a beggar on horseback, as the nigger does. Let
the nigger first learn to vote before he asks for ofifice. The
brazen- jawed nigger is but a trifle less assuming, insolent and
imperious in his demands than the lantern-jawed brigadiers ;
the educated nigger is a more capacious liar than his barba-
rian masters ez'er were, or dared to be

"The greatest mistake the Republican party ever made
was taking the nigger at a single bound and placing on his
impenetrable skull the crown of suffrage. It is a wrong to
him and to us to let him wield the ballot. The nigger is nec-
essarily an ignoramus. The free nigger, we repeat, is a
fraud."

CHAPTER XXXI.

The Reconstruction Period — Hate and Cruelty.

The full horrors of this dreadful period have never been por-
trayed. God knows the South was hated enough before and dur-
ing the war, but after the conquest, as she lay disarmed at the
feet of her conquerors, wounded almost unto death, the vengeful
ferocity of Republicans was something to wonder at. The
events of that period deserve a volume to themselves. I shall only
say a few words on the subject, Wendell Phillips, insane hater
of the South though he was, sometimes had the honesty to speak
plainly of his own party. Witness the following:

"The Republican party," said Phillips, "is not inspired
with any humane desire to protect the negro. It uses the

Chap. 31 Facts and Falsehoods. 221

bloody shirt for office, and once there, only laughs at it. Today
our greatest danger is the Republican party. Wolves in
sheep's clothing ! Hypocrites ! I hail their coming defeat,
looking forward to it as the dawning of a glorious day."

From early manhood General Grant was afflicted with the
drink disease. Phillips said :

"Grant can never stand before a bottle of whiskey with-
out falling down."

General Piatt, in "Memories of the Men Who Saved the
Union," says:

"Grant's habit of drink lost us thousands and thousands
of patriotic lives. The attempt to conceal this is not only
pitiable, but hopeless."

The terrible slaughter of Union soldiers at Cold Harbor was
charged to Grant's drunkenness. Major-General Wm. F. Smith,
in a confidential letter to Senator Foote, July 30, 1864, states that
soon after Grant had taken a pledge to drink nothing intoxicating,
he (Grant) called at his (Smith's) headquarters, and asked for
whiskey, and drank so often he went away drunk, aiid General
Butler sazv him. A short while before this Grant had written to
Washington asking that General P>utler be relieved from that de-
partment, because he (Grant) "could not trust Butler zuith the
command of the troops in the movements about to he made." In-
structions were sent to Grant to remove Butler. Butler heard of
this and hurried to see Grant. General Smith wrote Senator Foote
that he heard direct from Grant's headquarters, and also from
another source, that General Butler threatened Grant that he
would expose his drunken habits if the order was not revoked.
The order zvas revoked, and Butler remained in command, al-
though Grant had said he was unfit to be trusted.

General Piatt says :

"Grant has his monument in the hearts of Republicans ;
for that he lent his name to secure the perpetuation of Repub-
lican power."

Grant did not lend his name to secure the perpetuation of Re-
publican power, but to secure the Presidency for himself. When
Grant came to believe that the Republicans who opposed Johnson
and his policy would succeed in deposing Johnson^ he abandoned
Johnson and his policy (the very policy he himself had recom-
mended to Johnson), rushed into the camp of Johnson's bitter
foes, and became the tool and agent of the Republican leaders to

222 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 31

carry out their cruel policy toward the people of the South.
General Piatt testifies concerning Grant thus :

"Secretary Stanton had no hesitation in expressing his
contempt for Grant — contempt caused by the following event :
When the army of the Cumberland was cooped up in Chatta-
nooga, with starvation or surrender staring them in the face,
Stanton hurried to meet Grant at Louisville and consult with
him as to the best means of relieving our forces. The day
on which the two men met was given to these considerations,
and the wire between Chattanooga and Louisville trembled
with continuous messages. When night came the two men
separated with the understanding that after an hour's rest and
refreshment they should again meet and continue their labor.
Grant was to leave next morning for Chattanooga. When the
time came for the meeting Grant did not appear. Stanton
waited impatiently, receiving the telegrams that continued to
pour in, and at last sent for Grant, who could not be found.
Annoyed and disgusted, Stanton had the theatres searched
without success. At last, long after midnight. General Grant
was found i>i a place and binder such circwnstances not neces-
sary to relate to those who kneiv his habits. Had Grant been
of a sensitive nature, under Stanton's savage reprimand, he
would have then and there disappeared from history."

Grant came near being arrested by Halleck more than once.
In a telegram to McClellan, Halleck said :

"A rumor has reached me that Grant has resumed his
former bad habits. If so it will account for his oft repeated
neglect of my oft repeated orders. I do not deem it advisable
to arrest him at present."

In a telegram to Grant, Halleck said :

"Your neglect of repeated orders has caused great dissat-
isfaction and seriously interfered with military plans. Your
going to Nashville without authority, and when your presence
• with your troops was of the greatest importance, was a mat-
ter of serious complaint at Washington, so much so that I
was advised to arrest you on your return."

Yet to this alcohol-soaked man — this man who could not see
a bottle of whiskey without falling down — a Republican Congress
gave absolute power over the Southern States. There was no es-
cape from any decree issued from Grant's whiskey-soaked brain.
He had power to delegate his rule to any man under him. Grant
said to the military commanders under him:

Chap. 31 Facts and Falsehoods. 223

"The law makes the district commanders their own in-
terpreters of their power under it."

This drunken despot wielded absolute and irresponsible pcnv-
er over the unarmed people of the South. A few samples of the
methods Grant's sub-despots used will illustrate the South 's
condition :

"Headquarters Fourth Military District of Mississippi.

"Vicksburi^, Miss., June 15, 1868.
"General Order No. 123.
"First. — Major-Gen. Adelbert Ames is appointed Gov-
ernor of the State of Mississippi, vice Benjamin G. Hum-
phreys, hereby removed.

"Second. — Captain Jasper Myers is appointed Attorney
General of the State of Mississippi, vice C. Hooker, hereby
removed.

"Third.— The: officers appointed j^bove will repair with-
out delay to Jackson, and enter immediately upon the duties
of their respective offices."

"Headquarters Third Military District, Georgia, Alabama
and Florida.

"Atlanta, Ga., January 13, 1868.
"Charles J. Jenkins, Milledgeville, Ga.

"Sir : — I have no alternative but to remove you from
your office, as you will see by the enclosed order. I do not
deem myself called upon to answer the arguments in your
letter.

"GEORGE MEADE, Major-General Commanding.''

No despot ever felt called upon to answer arguments. Force
is the only argument despots use or can understand. Mr. John
Imes was the Treasurer of Georgia. Meade wrote him as follows :

"Mr. John Imes:

"Sir: — I am compelled to remove you from office, as you
will see I have done by the enclosed order.

"GEORGE MEADE, Major-General Commanding."

Grant's sub-despot over South Carolina wrote as follows :

"Headquarters.

"Charleston, S. C, Oct. 16, 1867.
"Judge Aldrich has been suspended, and will not be per-
mitted to hold any court in his circuit. See special Order No.
183, of this date. Bv command of

"BREVET MAJOR GENERAL ^E. R. C CANBY."

224 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 31

Does the reader want to know how the sub-despots appointed
by Grant ruled the people of the South? To this day that rule
is referred to as the "horrors of the reconstruction period."
After the military had full possession of all the offices of the
civil courts, from the highest down, malignant bullies
everywhere in power, a reign of terror set in almost
equal to the awful days of the French Revolution. Ev-
ery day numbers of the best citizens arrested on the
most frivolous charges, or no charge whatever, hands
and feet fettered as felons, dragged hundreds of miles away from
homes and friends, were thrown into dungeon cells, in which they
lay months or years in solitary confinement unless death ended
their suffering. These prisoners were not permitted to see
friends, relatives or counselor-at-law. During their long impris-
onment, miserably fed, cursed, abused by jailers, tried by military
commissioners, many died, many were condemned and sentenced
for life to the Dry Tortugas — condemned on evidence no court of
justice would have received. It was noticed that the military
courts seemed to feel special antipathy to young men, to beardless
boys — sons of the best citizens. The suffering of these youths in
prison, their tortures in the Dry Tortugas, they knew would in-
flict the keenest anguish on the hearts of parents and relatives.
The Montgomery (Ala.) Mail, speaking of the large number of
innocent young men sent to the Dry Tortugas, thus describes that
place of torment:

"At the Dry Tortugas the prisoners' heads are shaved.
They have to labor under a torrid sun upon a sand bank in
the midst of the ocean, with balls and chains about their legs.
The men who command the prisoners are amenable to the
laws of neither God or man. Col. Grental, a soldier, was tied
up by his thumbs, and treated with every species of cruelty
and barbarity. The laws are silent and newspapers dumb.
The prisoner who enters the Dry Tortugas leaves liberty,
justice, hope, behind him. Large numbers of young South-
ern men, for any or no offense, in what is called the recon-
struction period, are arrested, go t'rov.gh the farce of a
drumhead trial, presided over by men who take a fiendish de-
light in torturing any Southern man or woman, nearly always
found guilty, and sentenced for life to the Dry Tortugas The
lips of the Alabama journals are pinned together with bayo-
nets. Our hands are fastened in iron cuffs. We dare not
speak the whole truth. If we did our paper would be sup-

Chap. 31 Facts and Falsehoods. 225

pressed, our business ruined, our wives and children brought
to want."

Neither the despot Grant nor his sub-despots ever forgot the
press. Every officer and private in that army of despotism kept
a sharp eye on newspapers, and were quick to apply the muzzle
if any paper dared make public their evil deeds. Despotism is a
noxious plant, which hates the light and flourishes only in dark
places. A few samples will show how despots muzzled the press
in the South: On November 15, 1867, a file of soldiers entered
the ofiice of the Vicksburg Times, arrested the editor, dragged
him to jail. McArdle's offense was having reported in the paper
a despotic order made by General Ord, and comparing the situa-
tion of the South with that of Poland. McArdle was tried by a
military commission (always organized to convict) and condemn-
ed. Being a man of talent he took an appeal, but all the influence
of the military was against him. The case dragged on for years
before a final decision, which I have failed to find.

Early on the morning of August 8, 1867, a body of soldiers
forced their way into the oflice of the Constitutional Eagle, pub-
lished at Camden, Ark., seized, carried off and destroyed all the
material of the office. Col. C. C. Gilbert, the small despot com-
manding the Union soldiers at Camden, justified the acts of his
men, saying to the editor :

"An article in your paper unnecessarily exasperated my
soldiers. The press may censure the servants of the people,
but the military are not the servants of the people, but their
masters. It is a great impertinence for a newspaper in this
State to comment on the military under any circumstances."
— The Democratic Speaker and Handbook.

The comment which unnecessarily exasperated the soldiers
was a statement that when drunk the soldiers were in the habit
of indecently exposing their persons on the street when ladies
were passing. The National Intelligencer of Washington City
commented on the rule of the military satraps in the South, as
follows :

"Without any proof whatever four respectable citizens
were arrested and confined in separate cells in Atlanta, denied
all communication with friends, save under military surveil-
lance, denied all opportunity to confer with legal counsel.
Two white men in Fort Pulaski were confined in cells and de-
nied all access to friends or legal counsel. These six men
were brought out of their dungeons, hurried to trial for their

226 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 31

lives before a military commission, one of those institutions,
Mr. Webster said, always organized to convict. The statement
of facts is sufficiently horrible and damnable to every
officer and agent concerned in it. But this is only a part of
the infamous record. While these men are immured in dun-
geons, cut off from all access to friends or counsel, their ene-
mies, with artful and incessant malice, have been busy in pro-
curing false testimony, and the uniform of the nation is de-
graded by the military arrest of ignorant negroes, dragging
them by force before a military board, and then by threats
and curses, starvation and solitary confinement, endeavor to
extort from them false testimony upon which the lives of
innocent men may be taken away. The testimony we pub-
lish to-day establishes these facts, and shows the charac-
ter of the government under which the people of the South
now live." — Democratic Handbook and Speaker, page 162.

These military lords permitted the farce of elections, if car-
ried on under military control. Armed battalions of negroes and
Federal white men surrounded the voting places. In vain Demo-
crats issued protests against these outrages. In the House of Con-
gress Mr. Brooks, in behalf of the Democratic members, offered
a powerful protest.

"The military," said the protest, "have been used to de-
stroy States. The General of the army (Grant), representing
the sword, and only the sword (he represented a whiskey bot-
tle also), has been exalted by acts of Congress above the
constitutional Commander in Chief (the President) of the
Army and Navy, in order to execute these military decrees
and root out every vestige of constitutional law and libert}'.
To prolong and perpetuate this military rule in the North and
West, as well as the South, this same General of the army
(Grant) has been elected at the Chicago Convention to head
the electoral votes for the Presidency in ten States of this
Union, which are as much under his feet as Turkey is under
the Sultan's, or Poland under the Czar of Russia."

If the protests from Northern Democrats did not stem the
tide of despotism, they at least showed that a spark of the old
fire of liberty yet existed in this corrupted Union. At one stroke
of the pen Sheridan, Grant's sub-despot, disfranchised thirty
thousand white men in Louisiana. Grant was responsible for
every criminal act done by the military. The New York Herald
said of Grant's brutality in the South:

Chap. 31 Facts and Falsehoods. 227

"Every personal right of the citizen is invaded at once.
Without any process of law whatever, a man is deprived
of his liberty and thrust into a cell at the mere biddinj:^ of a
political or military bully. The secrecy of the telegraph and
post office is violated as no man would dare violate them in
despotic France."

At that time France was ruled by an Emperor. The South
was ruled by the despotism of hate. No Christian Emperor,
King or Kaiser was ever so cruel, so bitter, so vindictive as the
hate despotism imposed by Grant upon the people of the South.
By bogus elections carpetbaggers went to Congress. It seemed
that the chief aim of these bogus Congressmen was to obtain ad-
ditional power to rob, oppress and torment the people of the
South. The excuse for seeking Congressional aid was the ready
lie that the people of the South were on the eve of another re-
bellion. On the 23d of July a bill to send more soldiers and mu-
nitions of war to the Southern States was up for discussion. A
man by the name of Stokes, who claimed to represent a Tennessee
Congressional district, spoke as follows:

"If you do not send us guns and powder and bayonets
and cannon, and send 'em quick, Forrest and his rebel crew of
Democrats will be down on us like — like a thousand devils!
I want ten thousand stand of arms for my own district. Un-
less you send on these arms all the truly loyal negroes will be
overrun and the Republican party killed in Tennessee."

Mr. Washburn, of Illinois, seemed to be very anxious to send
guns and bayonets down to the loyal negroes and carpetbaggers,
but he was afraid.

"Sir," said Mr. Washburn, "sir, I believe that in most
of the States not ten days after these arms are sent South to
the loyal negroes they will be in the hands of the rebels."

Congress saw the danger. Never before was any Congress in
so painful a quandary. Anxious, yet afraid, to arm loyal negroes
and carpetbaggers. A man named Dewees, claiming to represent
the people of North Carolina (he might as well have claimed to
represent the people in the moon or the farthest star), added to
the distress and perplexity of Congress.

"If you don't give us arms," cried Mr. Dewees, pale and
anxious, "before six months the Ku-Klux-Klan. the Rebels
and the Copperheads will be ruling the whole South."

Ku-Klux, Rebels and Copperheads were a trinity of devils.
Hades had no worse. Still, Congress was afraid to send to th*

228 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

loyal negroes and carpetbaggers munitions of war, which seems a
little strange to us of this generation, knowing, as all now know,
that the Ku-Klux or Rebels in the South had no arms or muni-
tions of war, while the loyal negroes and carpetbaggers were
well armed. A Democrat named Woodward ventured to ask if
the reconstruction government in the South could be maintained
in no other way than by the bayonet. This question aroused Mr.
Dewees' indignation.

"No!" he roared. "We can only sustain our Govern-
ment by arms ! Arms we must have, or Ku-Klux, Rebels
and Copperheads will wipe us out and rule the South."

At this one or two Copperheads (Northern Democrats) were
imprudent enough to laugh, which had the effect of stirring Mr.
Dewees up to the very highest flight of oratory. Mr. Dewees was
short, thick set, and very ruddy, so to speak ; every pore of his
body broke out into a glow and gush and roar of eloquence, and
the whole House on both sides became convulsed with laughter.
"Come on!" shouted the man claiming to represent
North Carolina ; "I say, come on when you feel disposed !
Stretch out your traitorous hands to touch again one fold of
the old flag, and representatives of four million of men with
black skins, but loyal hearts, will dash themselves a bulwark
between you and the loyal governments in the South, and
you will only live in sad memories of bad events. Come on !
Come on!"

No one seemed disposed to come on, though entreated so
fervently. Never before was Congress in such a higgledy-pig-
gledy state of mind. If they sent arms to negroes and carpetbag-
gers the rebels would get every gun within ten days. Mr. Wash-
burn said so. If they didn't send arms the rebels would get every
negro and carpetbagger in ten days. Mr. Dewees said so.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Hate.
"Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
But they ne'er pardon, who have done the wrong."

On reading over the preceding pages of this work, I find the
word hate often recurs. In the absence of evidence the men of
this generation will not be able to form any adequate conception of
the vast volume of virulence which, like an empoisoned stream
bubbling up from hell itself, continually flowed downward on the
people of the South. This stream was started in 1796, and con-

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 229

tinued until, swollen to enormous proportions, it culminated in a
deluge of blood in 1861-1865. For four cruel years that deluge
spread itself over the States of the South, and at the end of four
years the men of the South laid down their arms and peace was
declared, but there was no peace. In 1898 the Republican party
inaugurated war on Spain to rescue Cuba from Spanish oppres-
sion. As soon as this purpose was accomplished the victorious
Republican party made haste to resume friendly relations with
Spain, and when Spanish army officers visited this country they
were courteously treated, not one unkind word spoken or written
of them or of their country. How differently did the conquering
Republicans treat the conquered people of the South after peace
was declared between the two sections ! If anything, Republican
hate became more intense. The whole reconstruction period
was a deadly war on Southern people, and the more base and cow-
ardly because waged on unarmed men and women. The Republi-
can party declared it waged the war of the 60s to restore the
Union. The Union was restored precisely to suit their ideas.
Every negro in the land was freed. Why, then, was not the Re-
publican party satisfied with its success, as it was satisfied with
its success in 1898? The answer is plain. Because the war of
the 6o's was not fought to restore the Union or to free negroes ;
these were the pretexts, not the true purpose, of that war. Re-
publicans hated the Union, and had little love for any enslaved
people. Republicans waged that war of the 60s to down, crush,
kill the Democratic party. When the South surrendered and peace
was proclaimed. Northern Democracy took courage, lifted up its
head, fronted and faced its old enemy and prepared itself to re-
sist any further torture and persecutions of Southern Democ-
racy. All the old fear of Democracy awakened in Republican
hearts, hence its increased intensity of hate. The people of the
South were talked of as though they were wild beasts, which it
were virtue to exterminate from the face of the earth. This
feeling suffered no abatement until after Garfield's death. Dur-
ing Garfield's campaign Republican hate amounted to insanity.

The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 15, 1881, said:

"Republican hate has blasted the fair heritage of our
fathers."

It certainly had blasted that heritage, and for a time seemed
to have killed liberty itself. Two years before Daniel Webster's
death, he foresaw and predicted the evil deeds th-vt party would
commit should it ever ascend to power.

230 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

"If these fanatics," said Webster, "ever get the power in
their own hands they will override the Constitution, set
the Supreme Court at defiance, change and make laws to suit
themselves, lay violent hands on them who differ in opinion
or who dare to question their fidelity, and finally deluge the
country with blood."

Every word of this prediction came to pass. The Constitu-
tion zvas overridden. The Supreme Court zvas set at defiance.
Molent hands zvcre laid on those who differed in opinion. The
country icas deluged in blood.

Samples of Republican Hate.

In 1859, at a meeting in Natick, Massachusetts, Senator Wil-
son, of Massachusetts, offered the following:

"Resolved, That it is the right and duty of Northern men
to incite and aid negroes in the South to rise in insurrection."

Seward said :

"I would like to see the negroes of the South rise in
blackest insurrection."

In 1859 the New York Herald said :

"Not only the Republican clergy encourage the insurrec-
tion of negroes in the South to bring on a civil war, but the
gentler sex also."

Hate like this came well from the descendants of men on
whose souls rested and still rests the horrors of the "Middle Pass-
age."

In a speech delivered by Mr. Joshua R. Giddings, in Kansas,
he said :

"I look for the day when I shall see a negro insurrec-
tion in the South, when the negroes will be supplied with Brit-
ish bayonets and commanded by British officers, and shall
wage a war of extermination against the whites, when every
white man shall see his dwelling in flames and his hearth
polluted ; and though I ma}- not mock at their calamity, yet I
shall hail it as the dawn of the millennium."

— Carpenter's Logic of History.

It was the hope of witnessing horrors such as Giddings
wished to see that made Seward, Medill, Chandler and others,
so eager to inaugurate war on the South. Republicans confidently
believed that at the first tap of the drum the negroes would rise

CiTAP. 32 Facts axd Falsehoods. 231

in "blackest insurrection" and set to work killing white women
and children. The amiable conduct of the negroes, their docile
obedience to the white women of the South while husbands,
brothers and fathers were at the front ])attling; for freedom, was
a sore disappointment to hating hearts. During that trying time
not a white woman on the great plantations was afraid of ne-
groes ; not a white woman was outraged or afraid of outrage. The
mistress of the "gret-us," as the negroes called the great house,
or the family mansion, never locked their doors at night. The
negroes on the place were their protectors, not their enemies.
Rapes of young matrons and maidens and little girl children were
not known in the South until after the savage but slumbering
instincts of negro nature had been awakened by instructions of
and companionship with those who hated the Southern people so
insanely. During Buchanan's administration the Rev. Wm. Du-
vall, unable to attend in person and address a convention of Re-
publicans, sent a letter to be read to the convention. A short ex-
tract will show the spirit of the writer and of the convention to
which he wrote:

"Long before this," wrote the Rev. Duvall, "an army of
20,000 men should have expelled from Washington City the
Goths and Vandals of this administration (President Buchan-
an and his Cabinet). The people of the North are ready to
do this work — only let the capitalists of the North furnish the
money — and the men are ready to fight this propagandizing
government. I sincerely hope that a civil war may soon
burst upon this country. I want to see it. My most fervent
prayer is that England, France and Spain may speedily take
this accursed nation into their special consideration and when
the time arrives, for the streets and cities of this land to run
with blood to the horses' bridles. If this writer be living there
will be one heart to rejoice."

— See Carpenter's Logic of History.

The Rev. Charles E. Hodges wrote a little work widely cir-
culated. The following extract will show its spirit:

"He is not a traitor to his country, but a true patriot, as
well as a Christian, who labors for the dissolution of the
Union. We do not expect to dissolve the Union alone ; we
simply ask co-operation, and for this appeal to the people.
This is not the time to lay out the plan of a campaign, to open
trenches, dispose of forces and besiege the citadel. The thing
to be now done is to urge upon every man this question : Are
you ready?" _^

232 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

James Watson Webb said in a speech :

"If we fail at the ballot we will drive back the South with
fire and sword — so help me God!"

At a public meeting held in Buffalo, New York, some years
before the South seceded, Governor Reeder, of Kansas, spoke
as follows:

"When I am on the trail of the enemy against whom I
have a deadly hate, I will follow him with cat-like tread ; I
will not strike until I can strike him dead. I do not wish to
give the South notice of our intentions. When the time
comes to strike I want the South to have the first notice of
the blow in the blow itself."

Hate blinded this man Reeder and his hearers to the base-
ness involved in the declaration that he would steal upon the ob-
ject of his hate as the tiger steals upon his prey, and strike as ti-
gers and assassins strike — in the dark and without warning.

Before the first blow of war was struck the Chicago
Tribune jauntily said to the Eastern States :

"Get out of the way ; we of Illinois can fight this battle.
In three months Illinois can whip the South."

Before a battle was fought the New York Tribune, which
time and again had declared the South's right to secede, right to
independence, said:

"The hanging of traitors is sure to begin before the
month is over. The nations of Europe may rest assured
that Jeff Davis will be swinging from the battlements of
Washington at least by the Fourth of July. We spit upon
a later and longer deferred justice."
The New York Times said:
"Let us make quick work. The rebellion is an unborn
tadpole. A strong pull will do our work effectively in thirty
days."

The Philadelphia Press said :

"No man of sense can for a moment doubt that the war
will end in a month. The rebels, a mere band of ragamuffins,
will fly on our approach like chaff before the wind. The
Northern people are simply invincible."

Seward said :

"It is erroneous to suppose any war exists in the United
States. There :s only an ephemeral insurrection."

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 233

The battle of Bull Run was fought July 21, 1861. Prominent

.Republicans, having no doubt of victory, boastingly invited friends,
Senators, Congressmen, their wives and daughters to go out and
"see the rebels run." "This," they gleefully said, "will be your
only chance to see anything like a battle." Accordingly, long
strings of carriages filled with fine ladies escorted by gentlemen on
horseback, drove out of Washington City that 21st day of July,
1 86 1, followed by express wagons loaded with eatables for lunch-
eon, baskets of champagne, bottles of brandy, beer, etc. They
prepared for a pleasant picnic, but their return was not quite so
joyous. However, there were some loaded wagons that went
from Washington that morning which never returned. They were
captured by Confederates, driven southward, and their contents
divided among the women of Virginia as mementoes showing the
spirit of Republicans at that time. Some of these mementoes
which escaped the pillaging and burning by the Union armies
now hang in Southern halls for Southern children to wonder at —
iron shackles and iron balls 'for rebel feet, and ropes and hand-
cuffs for rebel hands. Republicans confidently expected to see
long strings of Southern soldliers driven into Washington, pain-
fully dragging iron balls on their fettered feet, handcuffs on their
hands. Republicans often declared that the negro "would be de-
lighted to get a chance to cut their masters' throats." They con-
fidently expected negroes to rise in "blackest insurrection" and
help them burn houses and barns and kill Southern whites. When
B. F. Butler, surnamed the Beast, was commander of New Or-
leans, he was anxious to see negroes rise and kill white women
and children in La Fourche Parish, in which were only a few old
white men and many thousand blacks. Butler unfolded these views
to General Weitzel, who commanded that parish, and that officer
refused to engage in the work.

"The idea," wrote Weitzel to Butler, "of a negro insur-
rection is heartrending. I will resign my command rather
than induce negroes to outrage and murder the helpless
whites."

In 1863 Morrow B. Lowry, Republican Senator in Penn-
sylvania, in a public speech stated that he had declared that if
any negro would bring him his "Rebel" master's head he would
give him one hundred and sixty acres of his master's plantation.
Not a "Rebel" head did any negro take to Mr. Lowry. Russell,
correspondent of the London Times, was in Washington when the
battle of Bull Run was fought. On page 176 of his diary Rus-
sell says:

234 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

"The first Confederate soldiers captured were taken to
the station and mobbed in the streets. Men dressed as Union
soldiers hurled every kind of missile they could lay their
hands on at the prisoners, pelting them with mud and filthy
words. It was with difficulty the guard could save the
prisoners from being killed."

The unfortunate Confederate soldiers shut up in Northern
prisons describe the various cruelties, the tortures perpetrated on
helpless Southern soldiers. Many were killed wantonly by bru-
tal negro guards, who were rewarded, never punished, for suc^
deeds. Many died of starvation and cold. To cover up their own
cruelty, Republicans were eternally accusing the South of cruelty.

On page 163 of Russell's diary he says:

"The stories which have been so sedulously spread of
the barbarity and cruelty of the Confederates to all the
wounded Union men ought to be set at rest by the printed
statement of the eleven Union surgeons, just released, who
have come back from Richmond, where they were sent after
their capture on the field of Bull Run, with the most distinct
testimony that the Confederates treated their prisoners with
humanity. Who are the miscreants who try to make the
evil feeling, quite strong enough as it is, perfectly fiendish by
asserting that the rebels burned the wounded in hospitals
and bayoneted them as they lay helpless on the battlefield ?"

Who were they ? Russell did not know that lies of this nat-
ure were only part of the gospel of hate so long preached by the
Republican party and its progenitors, the Federalists of New
England. Never for a moment did those lies cease to be told.
The testimony of the eleven surgeons was blown away on the
wind and the lies went on. Lies of this sort were credited by the
prison guards, hence their cruel treatment of Southern soldiers.

On page 152 Russell says of Republican lies told in Wash-
ington :

"Such capacity for enormous lying, both in creation and
absorption, the world never before witnessed."

Even at the early stage of the war Seward, the vindictive,
gloated over the prospect of the South's sufferings. In the Union
army were large numbers of the lowest class of men from
European kingdoms. Of these Seward said to Russell:

"Thousands of half savage Germans come over, enlist in

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 235

our army and plunder and destroy as if they were living in
the days of Agricola."

— Russell's Diary, page 211.

Well informed Englishmen well knew how savage was the
hate Republicans felt toward the South. The London Telegraph
tersely put it thus:

"The North simply demands blood, blood, blood. Do-
minion, spoliation, confiscation."

At a Republican meeting in Cadiz, Wisconsin, March 26,
1863, the following was unanimously passed:

"Resolved, That we hail any policy of our Government
toward the South, be it annihilation, extermination, statva-
tion or damnation."

What virulence of hate lies in these words!
Cassius Clay said in a public speech :

"I find fault with Lincoln, not because he suspended the
habeas corpus, but instead of doing it by a dash of the pen,
he did not do it by 'ropes around the necks of the rebels.' "

"We'll hang 'em yet!" cried out a voice from the crowd.
"Yes," rejoined Clay, "the hanging of such men as Seymour
and Wood will be true philanthropy."

Seymour was the Democratic Governor of New York. Wood
was a distinguished Democrat of New York. All through the
history of the Republican party may be seen evidence that the
basic foundation of Republican animosity toward the South was
hatred of Democracy and Democrats. McClellan was only a
half-hearted Democrat, but Republican hatred of McClellan was
intense. Witness this from the Chicago Tribune :

"Give us rebel victories, let our armies be defeated ;
let Maryland be conquered, Washington captured, the Presi-
dent exiled, our Government destroyed. Give us these and
any other calamity that can result from war and ruin sooner
than a victory with McClellan as General."
\ — Carpenter's Logic of Llistory.

Wendell Phillips, who, before blood began to flow, eloquently
declared that the South was in the right, that Lincoln had no
right to send armed men to coerce her, after battles begun seemed
to become drunk on the fumes of blood and mad for more than
battlefields afforded. In a speech delivered in Beecher's church,

236 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

to a large and presumably a Christian congregation, Phillips made
the following remarkable declaration:

"I do not believe in battles ending this war. You may
plant a fort in every district of the South, you may take pos-
session of her capitals and hold them with your armies, but
you have not begun to subdue her people. I know it seems
something like absolute barbarian conquest, I allow it, but
/ do not believe there will he any peace until 347,000 men of
the South are either hanged or exiled." (Cheers).

Why the precise number, 347,000, does not appear. If the
hanging at one fell swoop of 347,000 men and women seemed to
Phillips something like barbarian conquest, it would be interesting
to know what would have appeared truly barbarian. History re-
cords some crimes of such stupendous magnitude, even to this day
men shudder at their mention.

In the Thirteenth Century, within two hours, while Sicilian
pirests were chanting vesper songs in Christian churches, 8,000
men were slaughtered. In the Eighth Century Charlemagne
hanged 4,000 men in one batch. In the Sixteenth Century, on
St. Bartholomew's Day, if we take the lowest estimate, 30,000, if
we take the highest, 70,000, innocent men and women were butch-
ered as fast as human hands could do the work. In France,
during the revolution, one fine September day, 1,000
men were put to death. During the Reign of Terror,
some estimate 2,000, others 4,000, human heads were
chopped off by the guillotine ; but these 4,000 were killed day by
day. Was Mr. Phillips and his party ambitious to ovettop all of
these stupendous crimes and win for himself and his party the
highest record in the calendar of crime? Marat was the monster
of the Reign of Terror. Becoming impatient at the killing daily*
done by the guillotine, Marat demanded it be given at one batch
an extra 250,000 heads. Was it Mr. Phillips' ambition to reach a
higher pinnacle of infamy than Marat tiad attained ? Is it indeed
true that the heart in a human breast sometimes ceases to be hu-
man, and a wolf's ramps in its place?

While the war was fiercely raging a meeting was called in
New York City for the relief of the sick and wounded Union sol-
diers. Parson Brownlow made a speech which elicited from the
Republicans frequent and loud applause. The following extract
will show the spirit of hate that ruled the hour :

"If I had the power," said Brownlow, 'T would arm and
uniform in the Federal habiliments every wolf and panther

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 237

and catamount and tiger and bear in the mountains of Amer-
ica ; every crocodile in the swamps of Florida and South Car-
olina ; every negro in the Southern Confederacy, and every
- devil in hell, and turn them on the rebels in the South, if it
exterminated every rebel from the face of God's green earth
— every man, woman and child south of Mason and Dixon's
line. I would like to see Richmond and Charleston captured
by negro troops commanded by Butler, the beast. We will
crowd the rebels into the Gulf of Mexico, and drown the
entire race, as the devil did the hogs in the Sea of Galilee."
{Long and loud applause.)

After this fine burst of ferocity Lincoln, Seward and Stanton
thought it would be a good thing to have Parson Brownlow Gov-
ernor of Tennessee, from which vantage ground he could harass
and torture the white people of that State at his leisure. By Fed-
eral aid the negroes and carpetbaggers in Tennessee put Brown-
low in the Governor's office, which he abused by cruelties, rascali-
ties and oppressions of every sort. English writers make fre-
quent mention of the bitter hate Republicans felt toward the con-
quered South. From an English work, published in 1891, called
"Black America/' I take the following :

"In spite of the fact that all resistance to Federal author-
ity had ceased, and that according to Mr. Justice Nelson of
the Supreme Court, the States in which the civil government
had been restored under the pacific Presidential plan were
entitled to all the rights of States in the Union, in spite of
these facts Congress solemnly decided that the war was not
over, and in March, 1867, Congress passed the reconstruc-
tion act, over President Johnson's veto. These acts annulled
the States' government, then in peaceful operation, divided
the States into military districts, and placed them under mar-
tial law ; enfranchised the negroes, disfranchised all white
men, whether pardoned or not, who had participated in the
war against the Union, if they had previously held any execu-
tive, legislative or judicial office under the State or Federal
Government."

So bitter, blinding venomous was Republican hate, high men
in that party openly and gleefully exulted in the cruelty of the
so-called reconstruction acts. Garfield was one of this sort.

"This bill," said Garfield joyfully, "first sets out by lay-
ing its hand on the rebel States' governments, and taking the
very breath of life out of them. In the next place it puts a

23S Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

bayonet at the breast of every rebel in the South. In the next
it leaves in the hands of Congress utter and absolute power
over the people of the South."

Percy Gregg, the English historian, in his history of the
United States, says:

"The reconstruction policy was at once dishonest and
vindictive. The Congressional majority (Republican) were
animated not merely by selfish designs, but by rabid hatred
of the South's people which had fought so gallantly for what
the best jurists of America believed to be their moral and
constitutional right."

For what the foremost men in the Republican party had de-
clared their right. Another English writer of great eminence, An-
thony Trollope, was in this country during the reconstruction
period, and wrote of it thus :

"I hold that tyranny never went beyond this. Never
has there been a more terrible condition imposed upon a fall-
en people. For an Italian to feel an Austrian over him, for
a Pole to feel a Russian over him, has been bad indeed, but
it has been left for the political animosity of the Republicans
of the North — men who themselves reject all contact with the
negro — to subject the Southern people to dominance from the
African who yesterday was their slave. The dungeon chains
were knocked off the captive in order that he may be har-
nessed as a beast of burden to the captive's chariot."

We will give another passage from Gregg, the English histo-
rian:

"The devastation of the Pallatine hardly exceeded the
desolation and misery wrought by the Republican invasion and
conquest of the South. No conquered nation of modern days,
not Poland under the heel of Nicholas, not Spain or Russia
under that of Napoleon, suffered from such individual and
collective ruin, or saw before them so frightful a prOspect as
the States dragged by force, in April, 1865. under the "best
government in the world.'" (Page 375, Gregg's History of
United States.)

When the bill to confiscate land in the South was before Con-
gress, the English language seemed to be inadequate to convey the
insane hate of the Republican party toward the people of the
South. A short extract from Thaddeus Stevens' speech will show
something of the spirit of that time:

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 239

"Why," cried Stevens, his face livid, his Hps flecked with
foam, "why all the carnage and devastation we have had?
It was that treason might be put down and traitors punished.
I say, the traitor has ceased to be a citizen ; he has become a
public enemy. The South's land must be seized and divided
and conveyed to loyal men, black or white. This confiscation
bill can be condemned only by the criminals and their friends,
and by that unmanly kind of men whose mental and moral
vigor has melted into a fluent weakness, which they mistake
for mercy, and by those religionists who mistake meanness
for Christianity."

Conventions were called in different States to arouse the peo-
ple to the fury of another war on the crushed, conquered, dis-
armed South. A convention was held in Philadelphia in 1866, the
purpose of which seemed to stir up hate toward President John-
son, and to fire the old soldiers with a desire to march down on
the South and "finish the war." General B. F. Butler was a big
man in that convention, and made venomous speeches. With one
blood-streaked eye turned Southward toward the land he hated,
and the other downward toward the hot home bad souls are doom-
ed to dwell in, Butler shouted out :

"By their rebellion the men of the South forfeited their
property, their liberty, their lives, every right they possessed.
Unfortunately they were not hanged, but we will march on
them once more, and woe to him who opposes us ! I say,"
Butler shouted, his terrifying eyes still turned in different
directions, "I say, keep the men of the South out of the Union
until the heavens melt ! And if that should not come to pass
in our day, we will swear our sons to keep them out." (Long
and loud applause).

Zack Chandler made a fierce attack on President Johnson,
whom leading Republicans had come fiercely to hate, because
Johnson's policy toward the South was less cruel than theirs :
"Who is Andy Johnson?" wrathfully demanded Chand-
ler. "What is Andy Johnson's policy? Andy Johnson has no
more right to a policy than my horse has. If Johnson does
not stop about now he will learn that treason is a crime, and
that it shall be punished."

Brownlow was a very big man at that convention. Brown-
fow, like Johnson, had fled from the South and entered the camp
of her foes. Lincoln had disliked Johnson, but had held Brown-
low in much favor. Before going to the Philadelphia convention

240 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

Brownlow made a speech to the carpetbaggers and negroes of
Nashville, Tenn. The following extract will show its spirit:

"I am one of those," said Brownlow, "who believe the
war has ended too soon. We have whipped the rebels, but
not enough. The loyal masses constitute an overwhelming
majority of the people of this country, and they intend to
march again on the South, and intend this second war shall
be no child's play. The second army of invasion will, as
they ought to, make the entire South as God found the earth,
without form and void. They will not, and ought not to,
leave one rebel fence-rail, outhouse, one dwelling, in the
eleven seceded States. As for the Rebel population, let them
be exterminated. When the second war is wound up, which
should be done with swift destruction, let the land be sur-
veyed and sold out to pay expenses."

This speech so highly pleased Republicans that the Philadel-
phia convention gave Brownlow a boisterous welcome. The fol-
lowing extract is from Brownlow's address to the convention :

"I mean to have something to say about the division of
your forces the next time you march on the South. I would
divide your army into three grand divisions. Let the first be
armed and equipped as the law requires, with small arms and
artillery. Let them be the largest division, and do the killing.
Let the second division be armed with pine torches and spirits
of turpentine, and let them do the burning ! Let the third and
last division be armed with surveyors' compasses and chains,
that will survey the land and settle it with loyal people."

Brownlow's speech so much pleased Republicans they invited
him to go about repeating his speech to stir up the old soldiers to
the fury of a second war on the South. Governor Yates of Illinois
was at that convention, also eager for a second war on the South.
In his speech Yates said:

"Illinois raised 250,000 troops to fight the South, and
now we are ready to raise 500,000 more to finish the good
work."

In another speech Brownlow exhorted the soldiers to march
down on the South, to "burn and kill! burn and kill!" until the
whole rebel race was exterminated. These sentiments were
praised as "truly loyal." These two words, "truly loyal," were
so prostituted by Republicans during the war. and for years after,
not for a thousand years will they regain their purity of meaning.

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 241

Not a man of the Republican party, not a paper condemned (so
far as I can discover) these rabid utterances. On the contrary,
the more rabid and malignant a man was, the higher he rose in
Republican favor. Richard Busted, a carpetbagger from New
York, who was playing the part of Judge in Alabama "Territory,"
in a speech made in New York City, spoke as follows :

"I would keep the rebels out in the cold till their teeth
chattered to the music of the Union. (Applause). Keep them
out in the cold till they learn that treason is the greatest crime
of the century ! I would keep them there till the last trumpet
sounded! I say, better a boundless waste of territory, filled
with owls and bats, than that the Southern States should be
occupied with such men ! (Cheers). I tell you, although there
may be forgiveness before God for the crime of the South,
there can be no forgiveness before men." (Long applause).

The carpetbagger, Hamilton, who was playing the part of
despot-governor over Texas, was eager to have another army
sent down on the devastated South. In his speech at the Phila-
delphia convention, the carpetbagger, Hamilton, said:

"Prepare your hearts, and your guns, and your swords,
for another conflict. It is bound to come. Get yourselves
ready." "We are ready," shouted back a blood-thirsty Re-
publican. "We are ready ! We'll march down and finish the
Rebs !"

. About the same time a convention was held in Syracuse, New
York, in which a second war on the South was urged. Lyman
Tremaine was president. In his address Mr. Tremaine said of
that second war:

"At the very first tap of the drum an army of veteran
troops capable of overwhelming all opposition will come to
the rescue."

Rescue of what? Of whom? Who, za'hat was in danger?

Were these men absolutely insane with hate ? Was it possible
they still apprehended danger from the disarmed South? They
well knew if they sent another army on the South it would
not be against armed men ; they knew, as Brownlow had declared,
all their army would have to do would be to "kill and burn ! kill
and burn !" to the dreadful end.

"Traitors," continued President Tremaine, "must be
punished. Our soldiers will proceed to punish them. This
time it will be effectually done by our soldiers without the in-

242 Facts and Falsehoods. ^ Chap. 32

tervention of President Johnston, or Congress, judge or
jury."

Yet this man Tremaine had once possessed a fair share of
reason and some sense of justice. In the early days of the war,
while speaking of the Southern people's resistance to the armed
invasion of their country, Tremaine said to his audience:

"But, gentlemen, while I do not justify secession in the
abstract, we must not forget that the South has had the most
terrible provocation to which civilized men have ever been
subjected. When they found the Government turned into an
engine of war and oppression — make the case your own, and
then make proper allowance for our Southern friends- — I ask
whether they are doing very differently from what human
nature would do under such circumstances?"

It seemed as if Republicans lay awake at night devising new
ways of manifesting hate toward the people of the South. On
May 25, 1866, a man by the name of Bond, in the House of Rep-
resentatives, gave notice as follows:

"I will introduce a bill to adopt the gray uniform of the
so-called Confederate States to be the uniform of the convicts
in the State penitentiaries, and that the prisoner convicted of
manslaughter be entitled to wear the ensign of rank of a
Colonel, and so on down to the lowest grade in crime."

In the summer of 1863 the Washington Chronicle reported a
speech made by Jim Lane, Republican Senator from Kansas, in
Washington City:

"I would like," said Senator Lane, " to live long enough
to see every white man in South Carolina in hell, and the
negroes inheriting their territory. (Loud applause.) It would
not any day wound my feelings to find the dead bodies of
every rebel sympathizer pierced with bullet holes, in every
street and alley in Washington City. (Applause.) Yes; I
would regret the waste of powder and lead. I would rather
have these Copperheads hung and the ropes saved for future
use. (Loud applause.) I would like to see them dangle until
their stinking bodies would rot and fall to the ground piece by
piece." (Applause and laughter.)

Nothing done by the Republicans after the war ended mani-
fested more malignant hatred than the way they treated and lied
on the President of the Southern Confederacy. This western
continent has nroduced no man of whom it has more reason to be

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 243

proud than Jefferson Davis. Brave, gentle, kindly, a true Chris-
tian in every walk of life, a patriot of the truest type, an ardent
lover of the liberty which inspired the* men of '76, Davis shouUl
be held 'up before the youth of America as deserving esteem,
reverence, emulation. When the war ended the Republicans se-
lected Mr. Davis as the chief object on which to pour foul streams
of hate. The English language was ransacked in search of 'vile
epithets to throw upon him ; hunian ingenuity was taxed to invent
base falsehoods to defame him. The murder of Mr. Lincoln was
seized as a pretext to charge him with the crime of assassination.
Without the faintest shadow of evidence Republicans made haste
to proclaim to the world that in their bureau of military justice
they had proof that Mr. Davis was guilty of the assassination of
Lincoln. $100,000 were offered for his arrest. When arrested
he was cast into prison and treated as a felon. Every species of
indignity and insult was heaped upon him. Though old, feeble,
sick, and strictly guarded, brutal men were ordered to enter his
cell, throw him down and weld iron chains and balls on his ankles,
ordered by the present Lieutenant-General Nelson A Miles. In
vain Mr. Davis requested to be taken into open court and tried on
the charges made. They dared not try him in any court. They
knew they had no particle of evidence on which to convict him.
Were he tried for Lincoln's murder, tJicy would be proved guilty
of lying, not Mr. Davis of murder. Were he tried for treason,
not Mr. Davis, but the whole Republican party, would be proved
guilty of treason — treason to the Constitution — treason to the
principles of '/6. Not daring to try Mr. Davis, too venomously
cruel to restore him to freedom, they kept him in prison two years
and every day of those two years, and almost every day after-
ward for more than a dozen years, Republicans continued to pour
out on Mr. Davis' name streams of sulphuric hate.

When Republicans proclaimed that Mr. Davis and other dis-
tinguished men of the South had assassinated Lincoln, there was
not a human on earth outside of the hate-crazed Republican party
who believed that charge. Earl Russell, irom the floor of Parlia-
ment, voiced the sentiment of all England when he said :

"It is not possible that men who have borne themselves
so nobly in their struggle for independence could be guilty of
assassination."

To this Harper's Weekly replied with the hate-born lie :
'Tf it seems too incredible to be true that the rebel lead-
ers were guilty of Lincoln's assassination, it must be remem-

244 Facts and Falsehoods, Chap. 32

bered that Lincoln's murder is no more atrocious than many
crimes of which Davis is notoriously guilty."

From the floor of Congress Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, March
19, 1867, poured out Republican hate in this fashion:

"While I would not be bloody-minded, yet if I had my
way I would long ago have organized a military tribunal
under military power, and I would have put Jefferson Davis
and all the members of his Cabinet on trial for the murders at
Andersonville and Salisbury, for the shooting down of our
prisoners of war in cold blood — this man who has murdered
a thousand men, robbed a thousand widows and orphans, and
burned down a thousand houses."

In Harper's Weekly of June, 1865, in this little burst of hate :
"The murder of President Lincoln furnished the final
proof of the ghastly spirit of the rebellion. Davis inspired
the murder of Lincoln."

If the murder of Mr. Lincoln furnished the proof of any one
thing, it is proof of the truth of Christ's saying :

"They that take the sword shall perish by the sword."
Boutwell of Massachusetts introduced a resolution into Con-
gress as follows:

"Be it resolved, That Jefferson Davis shall be held and
tried on the charge of killing prisoners and murdering Abra-
ham Lincoln."

John Forney, Clerk of the Senate, in the Washington Chron-
icle, said:

"The judiciary has ample evidence of Davis' guilt of
Lincoln's murder, and of the murder of our soldiers in his
prisons."

Not one particle of such evidence was in existence. In Har-
per's Weekly of June 17, 1865, we find this hate-born lie:

"Davis is as guilty of Lincoln's murder as Booth. Da-
vis was conspicuous for every extreme of ferocity, inhuman-
ity and malignity. He was responsible for untold and unim-
aginable cruelties practiced on loyal citizens in the South."
Mr. Davis was conspicuous for Christian mercy and gentle-
ness of character, as well as for wide culture. He was morally
and physically one of the bravest men this country has produced.
In Harper's Weekly of June 10, we find this :

"In its last struggle the South's expiring force was con-
centrated into one crime (the murder of Lincoln) so black the
shuddering world everywhere recognizes the devilish spirit
of rebellion."

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 245

The shuddering world today will recognize in Harper's rav-
ing the insanity of hate. The history of man's struggle for free-
dom shows that rebellions have won for mankind all the freedom
they possess. Did ever any ruler on earth, of his own will, loosen
his grip on the liberties of those he ruled? Every inch of liberty
the English-speaking people now have was gained by rebellions.
The colonies of '76 won freedom by rebellion. Rebellion means
resistance to lawful rule. George III. was the lawful King of the
Colonies. At no period in the existence of this Union has one
State or group of States held lawful rule over any other State or
group of States. The most stupendous falsehood ever told on
this continent is the falsehood that the Southern people rebelled.
There can be no rebellion except against lawful rulers. The Re-
publican party of the 6o's was guilty of the monstrous crime of
usurping the power to rule the Southern States. Not only did
Republicans pour out the virulence of hate on the South's men,
her women came in for a share, and a large share they received.
A few specimens will show the women of this generation how
their mothers were hated in the past.

Harper's Weekly, October 12th, 1861, has this:

"The ladies of the South ought to be sent to the alms-
houses and made to nurse pauper babies, and put to wash
tubs under Irish Biddies."

In the year 1865, June 4th, Harper had this little nugget of
pure hate:

"The women of the South are lovely and accomplished
to look at, but their bold barbarity has de-humanized them ;
they are like the smooth-skinned wives and daughters of the
ogres in fairy tales — hyenas and wolves in w'oman's shape."

The lies of hate are not all dead yet; as late as June, 1894, a
little paper called the Picket Guard, run in the interest of the
Grand Army of the Republic of St. Louis, published the follow-
ing wanton falsehood on the w^omen of the South :

"The mothers of the South," said the Picket Guard,
"systematically taught their children to be cruel. During the
war it was the custom of Southern ladies, accompanied by
their little boys and girls, to walk through the prison hospi-
tals and tear bandages from the wounds of the Union prison-
ers, to exult in the pain they witnessed."

Not a paper in St. Louis denounced this hate-born lie. On
the contrary, a Republican daily paper, the Star, of that city,

246 . Facts axd Falsehoods. Chap. 32

reproduced the lie in its columns, as a warning to the Society
of the Daughters of the Confederacy to keep silent on the war of
the 6o's.

On June 8th, 1866, ^Ir. Shellabarger of Ohio, from the floor
of Congress, poured out a stream of hate-born lies, of which the
following is a sample:

"They (the people of the South) framed iniquity and
universal murder into law — their pirates burned your com-
merce on every sea (the South had no pirates). They plan-
ned one universal bonfire of the North. They murdered by
systems of starvation and exposure 60,000 of your sons in
their prisons."

Of the malignant as well as foolish lies in this extract, it
is only necessary to notice the biggest of them all, the assertion
that the South murdered 60,000 Union soldiers in her prisons.
Secretary of War Stanton left on record the number of men on
both sides who were made prisoners during the war, and the
number who died in prison.

In Northern prisons were Southern soldiers. . . .220,000

Of those died in Northern prisons 26,000

In the South's prisons wrre Union soldiers. . . .270,000
Of those who died in Southern prisons 23,576

These figures show that ]\Ir. Shellabarger *s figures exceed
Stanton's by 36,424. If only 2^,=,y6 Union soldiers died in the
South's prisons, how did it happen that she starved to death
60,000 in her prisons?

"And," continued Mr. Shellabarger, in a final burst of
mendacity, "to concentrate into one crime all that is criminal
in crime, all that is barbarian, they (the people of the South)
killed the President of the United States."

Five days later Mr. Windom of Minnesota undertook to rival
if not surpass Mr. Shellabarger in mendacity. Standing on the
floor of Congress, Mr. Windom spoke as follows :

"The people of the South waged a diabolical four-years'
war ; they murdered our soldiers in cold blood ; they fired our
hotels filled with women and children ; they starved our sol-
diers to death in their prisons, within sight of storehouses
groaning with Confederate supplies. They polluted the
fountain of life. They only laid down their arms when our
victorious bayonets were at their throats ; and, while profess-

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 247

ing to accept the \ssues of the war, they assassinated the Na-
tion's President."

In 1876, eleven years after the South surrendered, Mr.
James G. Blaine of Maine stood up in Congress and poured
out a lot of hate-born lies as malignant as human tongue ever
uttered or human brain ever concocted :

"Mr. Davis," cried Blaine, "was the author, knowingly,
deliberately, guiltily, and willfully, of the gigantic murders
and crimes at Andersonville. And I here, before God, meas-
uring my words, knowing their full extent and import, de-
clare that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva in the Low
Country, nor the massacre of St. Bartholomew, nor the
thumb-screws and other engines of torture of the Spanish
Inquisition, began to compare in atrocity with the hideous
crimes of Andersonville."

When his speech was concluded Mr. Blaine's admirers
rushed up to congratulate him. Mr. B. H. Hill of Georgia rose
to his feet and confronted them with Stanton's figures.

"If," said Mr. Hill, "cruelty killed the 23.500 Union sol-
diers who died in the South's prisons, 7vhaf killed the 26,000
Confederate soldiers who died in th^ North's prisons? In
other words, if the nine per cent, of men in the South's
prisons were starved and tortured to death by ]\Ir. Jefferson
Davis. 7(.'ho tortured to death the twelve per cent, of the
South's men who died in the North's prisons?"

Mr. Blaine and his friends were dumfounded. vStanton was
an authority whose figures they dared not assail ; they, as Shella-
barger, had not chanced to see Stanton's figures.

Mr. Blaine made no reply to Hill for several days. Finding
the figures had been quoted correctly, he did not venture to
deny their accuracy, but attempted to weaken their force ; he
had not magnanimity enough to admit an error, to regret a
wrong. His explanation was lame, but it was the best he could
frame.

"Our men," said Mr. Blaine, "when captured were in
full health ; they came back wasted and worn. The rebel
prisoners in large numbers were emaciated and reduced
from having been ill-fed, ill-clothed, so they died rapidly in
our prisons — died like sheep."

This excuse was accepted by Republicans, and the lie that
the South starved prisoners to death was kept alive, and to this

248 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

day is often told. In 1892, B. F. Butler, surnamed the Beast,
wrote a book he called "Butler's Book." No one will fancy that
Butler would willingly speak one kind word of man or woman
in the South. Butler was a renegade from the Democratic party,
therefore, like all renegades, hoped to win favor with the party he
had joined by villifying the party he had abandoned. Butler
wrote his book twenty-seven years after the South surrendered.
During all those twenty-seven years the lie that Mr. Davis had
willfully starved and tortured Union soldiers to death was told
and retold a hundred thousand times. All that time Butler knew
the statement was false, but he did not choose to say so until he
wrote his book in 1892.

In that book, page 610, Butler says :

"In the matter of starvation of prisoners the fact is in-
contestible that a soldier of our army would easily have
starved on the rations which in the latter days of the war
were served out to the Confederate soldiers before Peters-
burg. I examined the haversacks of many Confederate sol-
diers captured on picket during the summer of 1864, and
found therein, as their rations for three days, scarcely more
than a pint of kernels of corn, none of which were broken,
but only parched to blackness by the camp fires, and a piece
of raw bacon about three inches long by an inch and a half
wide, and less than half an inch thick. No Northern soldier
could have lived three days on that. With regard to cloth-
ing, it was simply impossible for the Confederates, at that
time and months before, to have any sufficient clothing on the
bodies of their own soldiers. Many went bare-footed all
winter. Necessity compelled the condition of food and
clothes given by them to our men in their prisons. It was
not possible for the Confederate authorities to svipply clothes
and food." — Butler's Book, page 610.

Yet Windom had the gall to assert that the South starved
her prisoners to death within sight of granaries groaning with
Confederate supplies.

While Mr. Davis lay in a dungeon cell in Fortress Monroe,
and while the whole air of the North was thick with the cries,
"Hang him! Hang him! Hang him!" a number of the leading
men of the Republican party consulted together, and decided to
settle the question decisively, was Davis guilty, as charged, of
cruelty to the Union soldiers in prison ? Gov. Jno. A. Andrew of
Massachusetts, Horace Greeley, Thaddeus Stevens, Henry Wil-
son, then Vice-President of the United States, and Gerritt Smith

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 249

were of the number who were wilHng secretly to admit they did
not beHeve Mr. Davis guilty as charged — secretly, not one had
the fairness to say so openly. However, in the first week of Con-
gress, 1866, these men sent Chief Justice George Shea of the
Marine Court to Canada to inspect the official records of the Con-
federate Government. Judge Shea saw General John C. Breck-
enridge, then in Canada, and through his influence was placed in
Judge Shea's hands the official records of the Confederate Gov-
ernment, which Judge Shea carefully examined, especially all
the messages and acts of the Executive and Senate in secret ses-
sions, concerning the care and exchange of prisoners. Judge
Shea found that the inhuman and unwarlike treatment of the
South's soldiers in Northern prisons was a most prominent and
frequent topic during those secret sessions. From those docu-
ments, not meant to meet the public eye, it was manifest that the
people of the South had reports of the cruel treatment of their
loved ones in Northern prisons, and through representatives in
Richmond had pressed Mr. Davis, as the Executive and the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the South's Army and Navy, instantly to try
active measures of retaliation, to the end that the cruelties to
prisoners should be stopped. Judge Shea, in his report of the in-
vestigation, said:

"It was decisively manifest that Mr. Davis steadily and
unflinchingly set himself in opposition to the demands made
for retaliation, and this impaired his personal influence and
brought much censure upon him from Southern people.
These secret sessions show that Mr. Davis strongly desired
to do something which would secure better treatment to his
men in Northern prisons, and would place the war on the
footing of wars waged by people in modern times, and divest
it of a savage character ; and to this end Mr. Davis commis-
sioned Alexander Stevens, A^ice-President of the Confedera-
cy, to proceed to Washington as military commissioner. This
project was prevented by Lincoln and Seward, who denied
permission for Mr. Stevens to approach Washington. After
this effort to produce a mutual kindness in the treatment of
prisoners failed, the Southern people became more unquiet
on the matter, yet the secret records show that Mr. Davis did
not yield to the continual demand for retaliation."

— Southern Historical Papers.
Although this report, made in 1866, completely exonerated
Mr. Davis from the vile charge of having tortured and starved
prisoners to death, such was the despotism of the party in power,

250 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

such was the bitter hate Republicans in the North felt toward the
South, this report was not given to the public until nearly eleven
years after Judge Shea's report was made. All these eleven
years every Republican engine, newspapers, magazines, lecturers,
politicians, were hard at work villifying Mr. Davis and repeat-
ing the lie that he was guilty of torturing and starving prisoners
to death ; and this, although Horace Greeley, Senator Wilson,
Gov. Jno. A. Andrew of Massachusetts, Gerritt Smith and other
high Republicans knew these charges were absolutely false. Was
this Shea investigation kept secret from Blaiucf While in For-
tress Monroe cell, sick, feeble, unable to rise from his cot because
of the iron shackles and heavy iron balls on his ankles. Republican
cartoonists were using all the ingenuity of their art to picture Mr.
Davis, not only as contemptibly weak, but as ferocious as a wild
beast. In the collection of the New York Historical Society are
preserved a nvimber of these malignant productions. One, enti-
tled the "Confederacy in Petticoats," shows Mr. Davis dressed as
a poor old woman, feebly climbing a fence to escape the Union
soldiers which pursue him with pointed pistols and drawn swords.
Another cartoon, entitled "Uncle Sam's Menagerie," shows Mr.
Davis as a hyena in an iron cage playing with a human skull. A
noose is around his neck connected with a high gallows, and the
rope about to be drawn taut. Above the iron cage, in the shape
of birds perched on little gallows of their own, each with a noose
around his neck, are figures of other Confederate leaders. Uncle
Sam, in his usual red and white striped breeches, acting the show-
man, stands by the iron cage, a long stick in his hand, pointing up
to the gallows.

In Toledo, Ohio, October, 1879, fourteen years after the war
had ended, about four thousand five hundred ex-Union soldiers
held a meeting. The object of the meeting, it seems, was to vil-
lify the South, and especially to iterate and reiterate the lies that
Union soldiers were willfully starved to death in her prisons. A
man named Moody made the welcoming address. A few extracts
from the different speeches will show the spirit of hate that
ruled the crowd:

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Moody, "in
behalf of the thousands that starved and rotted and died in
the damnable hells controlled by that accursed traitor, Jeff
Davis (loud applause), assisted by imps like Puppy Ross,
Captain Wertz and others ; in behalf of every one that lies in
graves where they were put by traitors, accursed traitors, to

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 251

their Government, the best in the world ; in behalf of the God
above, we thank you for this grand reception."
Col. Streight made a speech, in which he said :

"I am called on by Copperheads (Northern Democrats)
to smoke the pipe of peace with Ben Hill of Georgia, and
with men who stand i:p in Congress and deny that the
Union soldiers had been starved and tortured in their prisons.
Men who lied like traitors, as they are. to get out of it, when
they say rebel prisoners were abused in Northern prisons.
(Applause). And now Hill wants to smoke the pipe of peace
with me. He fills that pipe with rebel lies, with infamy. He
fills it with self-conceit and self-glory. It makes me sick.
Hill stands up there in Congress and says the rebel stook
the best care they could of our men in their prisons. He lies !
He lies deep down in his throat ! He knows he lies ! Yet we
have some persons in this country anxious to forget and for-
give." (Long and loud applause).

Garfield was a speaker at that meeting. Garfield's speech and
Colonel Streight's had been cast in the same mould. The fol-
lowing is an extract from Garfield's reported speech :

"The Southern Senators lie like traitors, as they are!"
shouted Garfield, "when they say our men were treated as
wx'll in their prisons as the rebels were treated in our pris-
ons. Hill of Georgia stands up in Congress and lies when he
says the rebel chiefs took as good care of our men in their
prisons as they could. Yes, deep down in his throat he lies.
They were human fiends. Hill is a liar. There is no peace
with rebels! They are very anxious to forget and forgive.
Are zi'e to be friends with traitors? No! No! Never! We
have proof that Jefferson Davis was guilty of torturing our
men in his prisons to death ! It was his policy to make idiots
of our men by tortures. Southern cruelty never before in all
the world had its parallel for atrocity. Never can we for-
give them ! Never will I be willing to imitate the loving kind-
ness of Him who plar?ted the green grass on the battle-
fields."

And all this, twelve years after Judge Shea had made his
report !

Garfield seldom missed an opportunity to give vent to his ani-
mosity. In a speech in Chicago he said :

"Never will I consent to shake hands with the South
until she admits she was wrong, eternally wrong, and the
North was right, eternally right."

252 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

In 1879 and 1880, during the Garfield campaign, Republican
hate became a howling insanity. Judge Yaples, in the Cincin-
nati Enquirer of 1880, said:

"Republican hate is grounded on the fact that the people
of the South will not join the Republican party."

How could they be expected to join a party which, from its
birth, had wronged and hated them ?

Garfield's champions boldly declared that when he was elect-
ed the South would be territorialized, so that the whole country
could be Africanized, and negroes put in rule over whites and
upheld by military power.

A Washington correspondent of the Louisville Courier-Jour-
nal, 1879, "vvrote this:

"At no time since the war has the rancor of the Republi-
can press been fiercer than it is at this time. No epithet is
too vile to be applied to the people of the South. They are
held up as barbarous ruffians, outlaws, murderers, thieves.
The New York Tribune the other day compared them to
hyenas, and begged pardon of those beasts for the compar-
ison. The speeches of Conkling, Blaine, Edmonds and the
rest are pitched in the same key."

In December of 1883 the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette
contained this gem of pure hate and pure lie :

"If the actual state of things South of the Ohio were
set before the Northern people they would have no sympathy
to spare for cruelty in any other part of the world. No other
land can furnish a parallel to such barbarity as our own.
From Zululand and Congo, Ashantee and Abysinnia, through
the Nomadic Bedouins, the Bashi Bazouks, the half-civil-
ized tribes of Western Asia, to the savage rule of the
Czar, with his endless procession of political prisoners to Si-
beria, not one can equal the reign of the savagery which
exists in the South."

When this was written the Southern people were hard
at "work increasing their crops, multiplying their industries,
enlarging their school facilities, teaching the older and richer
portions of the country lessons in manufacturing, renewing
the soil of their fields, and offering the world an example of
two widely differing races living in harmony together."

A Republican paper, the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, during
Garfield's campaign, said :

Chap. 32 Facts anb Falsehoods. 253

"On the Fourth of July, 1881, the pig-headed brigadiers
of Massasip and Kaintuck, Arkansas, Alabam, and the
whole barbarian Southland, will see their State Constitutions,
and State sovereignties, and State lines, their ignorance and
tlieir cowardice, torn up by the roots from their blood-soaked
soil. Garfield's Presidency is to be the Regency of Stalwart-
ism ; after that — Rex."

During Mr. Hayes' campaign, Mr. Howard Kutchins, editor
of the Fon-du-lac (Wis.) Conuiioiiwcalth, two weeks before
election day inserted in his paper the following address to Repub-
lican voters :

"To Anus, Republicans!"
"Men ? Work in every town in Wisconsin for men not
afraid of fire-arms, of blood, or dead bodies. To preserve
peace and prevent the administration of public affairs from
falling into the hands of obnoxious men, every Republican in
Wisconsin should go armed to the polls on next election
day. The grain stacks, houses and barns of all active Demo-
crats should be burned to the ground, their children burned
with them, their wives outraged, that they may understand
the Republican party is the one which is bound to rule, and
the one which they should vote for or keep their stinking car-
casses away from the polls. If they persist in going to the
polls and voting for Jenkins (Democrat), meet them on the
road, in the bush, on the hill, anywhere, night or day, and
shoot every one of the base cowards and agitators. If they
are too strong in any locality and succeed in putting their
opposition votes into the ballot boxes, break open the boxes,
tear to shreds their discord-breeding ballots, and burn them
to ashes. This is the time for effective work. These agita-
tors must be put down. Whoever opposes us does so at his
peril. Republicans, be at the polls in accordance with the
above directions, and do not stop for a little blood."

Hayes became President ; in reward for so much party zeal
he nominated the bloodthirsty Kutchins for the Internal Revenue
Collectorship in the Third District of Wisconsin. vSo far as I can
learn, not a man or woman in the Republican party made any ob-
• jection to Kutchins' savage advice to voters. Yet this is the party
which to this day weeps tears of sympathy over any negro man
whose vote is not cast and counted in the South.

It seems that Mr. Wendell Phillips never fully recovered
from the gangrene of heart caused by the fumes of blood continu-
ally rising from battlefields. An article by him in the American

254 Facts anet Falsehoods. Chap. 32

Rez'iezi' of ]\Iarch, 1879, shows that a wolf's, not a human, heart
still ramped in his breast.

"Treason," wrote Phillips, "should have been punished
more severely. We all now see that magnanimity went as far
as it safely could when it granted the traitor his life. His
land should have been taken from him, and before Andrew
Johnson's treachery, every traitor would have been too glad
to be let off so easily. His land should have been divided
among the negroes, forty acres to each family. Every
rebel State should have been held as a territory under the
direct rule of the Government, without troublesome ques-
tions. Henry Wilson, Vice-President, confessed to me that
this was the greatest mistake of our party. His excuse for
the mistake was that the Republican party did not dare to
risk any other course in the face of Democratic opposition."

Only a heart gangrened with hate, only a judgment distorted
by hate, could call the South's resistance to invasion treason. Be-
fore hate-insanity got in its work on Phillips' brain he declared
that the South acted on the principles of 'y6. and that no one
standing with these principles behind him could deny the South's
right to independence. The smallest affairs of life Republicans
slimed all over with the poison of hate.

Articles like the following adorned Republican newspapers.
The Topeka (Kansas) Citizen, a Republican paper, in 1879 had
this :

"By allowing the worthless scoundrels of the South to
live, their contemptible seed was perpetuated. They are a set
of demons, both by nature and practice, and Avhile one of the
breed is left they will remain the same. As well try to hatch
chickens from snake eggs as to raise a decent race of human
beings from the ofTscouring of the miserable, heartless mur-
derers and robbers of the South."
A Chicago paper had this :

"In their houses, their persons, their food, their habits,
Southern men and women, as a rule, are unclean. They have
dogs and hogs and other unclean animals for their nearest
neighbors, and share their houses with these animals and
vermin of a different sort."

Another Chicago paper kindly served notice as follows:
"When Southern men come North, whether for busi-
ness or pleasure, they must understand they will not be re-
ceived as equals."

Chap. 32 Facts axd Falsehoods. 255

Robert Ingersoll, the favorite infidel lecturer of the Repub-
lican party, made loud pretense of loving liberty. The follow-
ing is a sample of the kind of liberty Ingersoll lived :

"When a man," said Ingersoll, "talks of despotism you
may be sure he wants to steal, or be up to some devilment.
/ am not afraid of centralization ; / want the power where
somebody can use it. I want the ear of the Federal Govern-
ment acute enough, its arms long enough, to reach a man
in any State."

In 1879 the Quincy (Illinois) Whig had this:

"Every Republican knows that nothing so good could
happen to this country, nothing that would be of such advan-
tage, as a general and judicious slaughter of Democrats at
the polls. Every Republican ought to take a bayonet to the
polls for the purpose of assisting the Federal army in the
work of killing the Democrats."

The reader must never forget that all the hate Republicans
felt originated in hate of Democrats. Hate of Thomas Jef-
ferson's principles is as inherent and ineradicable in Republican
hearts as it is in the open and avowed monarchists.

In 1879 the Lemars (Iowa) Sentinel, a true-blue Republican
paper, published in its columns Republican opinions of Southern
people as follows :

"The South is not and never was aught else but pusil-
lanimous, perfidious, cowardly. We ask, nay challenge, all
the Brigadiers in Yah-Hoo land (the South) to show one in-
stance, one solitary instance in all her history, of either honor
or courage. We could fill the Sentinel ten thousand times
with deeds of Southern infamy, treachery, blood-thirstiness,
mendacity, malevolence, barbarity, ingratitude, ruflianism,
dishonor, cowardice, rapine, and general hellishness. That
so infamous, base, sinister, indecent, corrupt, and demoni-
acal people should ever have enjoyed the reputation of chiv-
alry or of courage, is bad enough, but that such spawns of
hell should be rehabilitated with political rights, and made
political equals of the brave, loyal, true Xorthern men, is the
champion crime of the Nineteenth Century."

Brevet ]\Iajor George W. Nichols, aide-de-camp to General
Sherman when he made that vainglorious march to the sea,
wrote a book called "The Story of the Great March." Hate so
warped Major Nichols' mind he made statements so absurd no

256 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

one outside of imbecile asylums could possibly believe them.
Instance this from page 173:

"A characteristic feature of South Carolina has im-
pressed itself upon all of us. I refer to the zvliining, helpless,
craven spirit of the men. These fellows are more cowardly
than children ; they whine like whipped boys. There is not
an officer or soldier in all our army wdio does not feel the
most supreme disgust and contempt for those chivalric
creatures."

On page 193 Major Nichols has this:

"The white people of South Carolina are among the
most degraded specimens of humanity I ever saw — lazy,
shiftless ; only energy to whine. The higher classes in South
Carolina represents the scum, the lower, the dregs of civ-
ilization. They are not Americans ; they are merely South
Carolinians."

On page 213 is this:

"What strikes me most is the evidence of intellectual
decay. They so want in energy and vitality as to approach
senility."

The imbecility of North Carolina's people did not escape
this sharp-sighted Major. On page 293 he tells of his visit to
an insane asylum :

"I found," said the Major, "that the inmates were more
idiotic than insane. The only inmate zvho gave evidence of
ever having intellect zvas a man from Massachusetts."

So completely did the devilish spirit of hate dominate the
hearts and brains of Sherman and his officers, they had not as
much kind feeling for the unfortunate women living on the line
of that march as humane men would have felt for dumb cattle.
The divine quality of mercy, of pity, had no lodgment in their
breasts. Major Nichols' book proves this. Soon after_ entering
Atlanta, Ga., Sherman ordered every inhabitant (fifteen thou-
sand in number) driven from the city. Not a single armed man
was among them ; they w'ere mostly v/o'iien and children, with a
few old men. Of this unnecessary mea5"re, Major Nichols says:
"The order was firmly but kindly executed. They
were allozved to choose zvhich zvay to go."

Was it this allowance that constituted the kindness? Think
of it, Christian people! 15,000 women and children, at the point
of bayonets, driven from their homes into the pathless woods, in

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 257

the bleak November montli, shelterless, foodless, to wander about
as they might. In his report of this to General Halleck, Sher-
man says :

"They (the women and children) did not suiter, unless
for 'want of food."

Picture to yourselves, Christian people of this age, the suf-
fering of 15,000 women and children in such a condition! Of
this act General J. B. Hood wrote Sherman:

"Your unprecedented measure transcends in studied
and ingenious, cruelty all acts ever before brought to my at-
tention in the dark history of war."

Hood's letter greatly angered the irascible and self-inflated
Sherman, who wrote to Halleck:

'T cannot tamely submit to such impertinence. But as
long as my Government is satisfied I do not care what rebels
say."

Sherman's Government was highh- satisfied. Every act of
cruelty to Southern people greatly pleased that cruel and pitiless
government. Had Sherman ordered the women of Atlanta to
be prodded by bayonets out of their homes, along their streets
bleeding, fainting, to the woods, or had he ordered them hanged
by the dozens until dead on the boughs of the trees, that govern-
ment would have been fully as well pleased. There is nothing in
the history of that government to show that it ever manifested the
slightest disapprobation of the atrocities its armies perpetrated.
After Atlanta was empty of its citizens, every woman and child
in the woods, Major Nichols cheerfully informs us that —

"The soldiers are now resting and enjoying themselves

thoroughly."

Resting from the labor of driving women and children out
of their homes into the woods, and enjoying themselves over
the suffering caused. After resting the soldiers were ordered to
burn down the city. Major Nichols savs:

<<'

'The houses are now all vacant. The streets are empty.
A terrible stillness and solitude depresses even those who
are glad to destroy all. In the gardens beautiful roses
bloom, the homes are all in flames. In the peaceful homes
of the North there can be no conception how these people
suffer for their crimes."

258 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap.

32

What crimes? Only hate-poisoned hearts, only hate-
distorted brains could or can call a war of defense a crime. Re-
member, oh posterity, from the first to the last of the war, the
South fought in self-defense. The Republican party fought a
war of conquest.

On page 37 Major Nichols says:

"We are leaving Atlanta. Behind we leave a track
of smoke and flame. Yesterday we saw in the distance
pillows of smoke ; the bridges were all in flames. 'I say !'
said a soldier, 'I believe Sherman has set the very river
on fire.' Tf he has, its all right,' replied his comrade.
The rebel inliabitants are in an agO)iy. The soldiers are
as hearty and jolly as men can be."

All through his book Major Nicliols seems to be anxious
to show that the greater the sufferings inflicted on Southern
people, the healthier and jollier were his soldiers. On page 38
Major Nichols made the following record:.

"Atlanta. Night of the 15th of November, 1864.

"A grand and awful spectacle is presented to the behold-
ers of this beautiful city now in flames. The Heaven is
one expanse of lurid fire. The air is filled with flying, burn-
ing cinders. Buildings covering 200 acres are in ruins or
in flames."

For 2,000 years the name of Nero has been execrated as
that of a monster. The burning of Rome was the work of a moral
monster. Sherman's crime of burning Atlanta proves him to
have been the greater monster of the two, inasmuch as Sherman
had been born and reared under the merciful light of Christianity.
Nero was descended from a line of pagan ancestry on which
the divine light of Christ's teachifigs had never fallen.

On page 39 is a picture of Atlanta in ruins. On page 112
is a picture which should today, thirty-eight years after that war
ended, bring the blush of shame to every Republican cheek. This
picture represents a little cottage on the wayside of Sherman's
march. In the open door stands a sorrowful woman, a babe in
her arms ; four frightened children clingy to her skirt. Nine
or ten men in blue are in the yard prodding the earth with bayo-
nets and sabres in search of the little trifles, trinkets, the sorrow-
ful woman had hoped to save from army robbers by burying in
the ground. Of scenes like this Major Nichols says:

"It is possible that some property thus hidden may

CiiAr. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 259

have escaped the keen search of our men, but if so it was not

for want of diligent exploration. With untiring zeal the sol-
diers hunted the concealed things whenever the army halted.
Almost every inch of ground in the vicinity of the dwellings
was prodded by ramrods, pierced by sabres, upturned by
spades. The result was very distressing to rebel women
who saw their little properties taken."

What can be more contemptible than this? Armed men,
officers and privates, robbing hel])lcss, poverty-stricken women
of the poor little trinkets they had hoped to save by burying in
the ground ! And these contemptible deeds are related in a
boasting way!

"It was comical," continued our fine Major, "to see a
group of these veterans punching the unoffending earth.
When they 'struck a vein' the coveted wealth was speedily
tmearthed. Nothing escaped the observation of these sharp-
witted soldiers. I'he woman watching these proceedings
was closely watched, her face, her movements, giving the men
a clue."

"These searches," cheerfully remarks the Major, "made
one of the pleasant excitements of oar march."

Yes, one; but by no means the only one. Robbing the women
of rings, pins, silver cups, looting their houses, carrying off all
they could ; destroying what they could not appropriate, im-
mensely added to the "pleasant excitements of that march."
Even the poor little garments, which expectant mothers, with
patient toil, carding, spinning the thread, weaving the cloth,
cutting and sewing, had prepared for unborn babes, even these
poor little things were seized by rude hands, held up to the rude
jokes and laughter of the jubilant men in blue, then torn into
strips, thrown on the ground and trampled under foot.

So useless as a military measure was this vainglorious
march of Sherman's, even Union officers (General Piatt for one)
condemn that march. Piatt says: "Sherman could just as well
have disbanded his army (60,000 strong) as have been guilty
of the folly of that march."

On page 207 of Major Nichols' book, I take the following:

"It was usual to Jiear among soldiers conversations like
this: 'Where did you get that splendid meerschaum?' or
'Where did you get that fine cameo?'

'Oh,' was the reply, 'a lady presented me this for saving
her house from bdng burned,' "

26o Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

The wit of this Hes in the fact that the trinkets had been
taken from the ladies and their houses burned also.

"This style of answer," comments our valiant Major,
"became the common explanation of the possession of all
sorts of property. An officer taking a punch from an ele-
gant chased silver cup, was saluted thus :

" 'Hello, Captain ! that's a gem of a cup ; where did you get
it?' 'Oh,' returned the Captain, 'this was given me by a
lady for saving her household things from burning up.' An
enterprising officer came into camp one day with a family
coach filled with hams, flour, and other things, and cried out,
'Elegant carriage, isn't it? This is a gift from a lady whose
house was in flames.' "

Set in flames by the order of the officer who had the car-
riage.

"Gold watches, boxes, chains, rings, etc., were got in
this way."

"This," complacently remarks our Major, "was one of
the humors of the camp."

What do the people of this age think of such humor? These
men in blue first robbed defenseless women of their small trinkets
and other little things, set fire to their houses, then lied to their
comrades, saying the trinkets had been presented to them by the
women they had robbed. What devilish humor was this? Ma-
jor Nichols, page 161, says:

"The Mayor of Columbia, S. C, came out to surrender
the city, but this did not entitle its citizens to protection."

Who could expect protection from men whose hearts were
as devoid of mercy, of pity, of kindness, as wolves or tigers?
These only rend and kill to satisfy the keen pangs of hunger ; the
men on that march pillaged, robbed and burned to satisfy the
devilish demands of hate.

After descanting on the beauty of Columbia, its flowering
vines and shrubs, its gardens of roses and fragrant flowers, the
Major sagely and solemnly says:

"I could but reflect on how utterly these cowardly
South Carolinians have lost all pride' of nationality."

If the Republican party, its officers and armies of the 6o's
represented the real nationality of this country in that time, for-
ever and forever would that false, unjust, cruel and blood-soakf

Chap. 32 • Facts and Falsehoods. 261

ed nationality be detested, despised, scorned, hated by every
humane and freedom-loving heart in America !

As the reader knows (from evidence given in preceding
pages of this book), the large majority of the Northern people
disliked and opposed Lincoln's war of conquest on the South.
From the first to the last day of that war they opposed it. Nich-
ols is fond of telling falsehoods which only idiots could accept
as truths. Instance this :

"The failure of Jef¥ Davis has brought down on him the
hatred and abuse of his own people. Were he here today noth-
ing but execration would have been showered upon him."
And this :

"The people of Raleigh, N. C, were astonished to find
that Sherman's army were Christian gentlemen."

Is it possible that Major Nichols himself for one moment
believed Sherman's army were Christian gentlemen? Would
any "gentleman/' Christian or not, have engaged in the mean
work of robbing poor women of their small trinkets, the gifts
of love or friendship? Would any man with one particle of gen-
tlemanly feeling have manifested so much pleasure in the suffer-
ings their cruelties caused. Both Major Nichols and General
Sherman gleefully parade their wanton wickedness, and gleefully
wind up such stories by boasting of their soldiers' great enjoy-
ment of such work. Nichols says :

"History will in vain be searched for a parallel to the
scathing and destructive effect of the invasion of the Caroli-
nas. Aside from the destruction of military things, there
were destructions overwhelming, overleaping the present
generation — even if peace speedily come, agriculture, com-
merce cannot be revived in our day. Day by day our legions
of armed men surged over the land, over a region forty
miles wide, burning everything we could not take away. On
every side, the head, center and rear of our columns might
be traced by columns of smoke by day and the glare of flames
by night. The burning hand of war pressed on these people,
blasting, withering."

In Sherman's report to Halleck he evidently takes great
pride in the wanton destruction he has wrought:

"I estimate," writes Sherman, "that the damage to
Georgia alone is $100,000,000 — $98,000,000 was simple de-
ftruction — two millions have inured to our advantage. Our

262 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

soldiers have done the work zvith alacrity and cheerfulness
unsurpassed."

In Sherman's report to Halleck of the burning of Columbia,
in 1865, Sherman charged that crime to General Wade Hampton.
That lie went traveling over the Northern States for ten years.
In 1875, Appleton & Co. published Sherman's Memoirs, written
by himself. In volume 2, page 287, Sherman, without a blush of
shame, admits the lie, using the following words:

"In my official report of the conflagration of Columbia,
I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and
confess I did so pointedly to shake the faith of his people
in him."

What an old silly Sherman must have been to think anything
he could say on any subject would shake any Southern man's
faith one way or the other! Sherman's sense of honor was too
dull to permit his feeling ashamed of lying, ashamed of publicly
proclaiming he had lied on an honorable man, and from the mean
motive of injuring him in the esteem of his friends.

Shortly after the South surrendered, Salmon P. Chase, Lin-
coln's Secretary of the Treasury, made a flying visit down the
Atlantic States. On his return, newspapers reported Mr. Chase's
opinion of the whites and blacks in these States :

'T found," said Chase, "the whites a worn-out, effete
race, without vigor, mental or physical. On the contrary,
negroes are alive, alert, full of energy. / predict in tzventy-
five years the negroes of the South zvill he at the head of all
affairs, political, religious, the. arts and sciences."

Though an undisputed and indisputable fact that Guiteau,
who assassinated Garfield, was a Northern man, a member of the
Republican party, such was the New York Tribune's blind and
bitter hate of the South, it promptly accused her people of that
crime.

The Republican paper, the I>emars (Iowa) Sentinel, was so
filled with the imperial spirit during the Hayes administra-
tion, it addressed that mild President in the following rampant
style :

"Rutherford! are you a man? If you are, issue a proc-
lamation ! Proclaim the States of Mississippi and Louis-
iana in open rebellion against the Nation! Declare every
State of the old Rebel Confederacy in a state of siege. Call
an extra session of Congress, exclude every so-called Sena-

Chap. 32 Facts and Falsehoods. 263

tor and Representative from the rebellious territory, and
with a loyal legislature begin the great work of moulding a
plastic Nation into form. Disfranchise the rebel States for
a generation, at least. This is the heroic method and re-
quires a hero in the van."

If there is anyone in the North or the South who believes this
strange hatred of Southern people has died out, let him look over
the columns of modern daily papers, let him observe the tone of
modern Republican politicians ; especially let him take a glance
at modern Republican histories, biographies, lectures, etc.

On this day, October 14, 1903, a telegram from Louisville,
Ky., states that the members of the Union Veterans Union, at a
public reception given them in a large hall in that city, sung
"We'll Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree." Next day a
delegate offered a resolution disclaiming any intention to wound
the feelings of Southerners by singing that song. The resolution
was voted down.

A few years ago a convention of educators met in Nashville,
Tennessee. The delegates were hospitably received and enter-
tained, free of cost to them. One of these delegates, a woman,
from the State of Kansas, was entertained in the best hotel in the
city. While occupying an elegant room, eating and drinking of
the best the State afforded, this woman wrote a letter for publica-
tion to one of her own State's newspapers. The Kansas paper
promptly published it, and the Nashville American reproduced it
before the writer left the city and the people she so hated. That
woman delegate's malignant hatred of the South found vent in
the following sentiment :

"I hope and pray when I pass away from earth I will
be able to look down from the heavenly blue above and see
the black heel set on the white necks of these people."

As a sample of the way Republican writers do not hesitate
to tell untruths, I give a few lines from a little history published
in 1894, written by a woman named Mrs. Emma Cheney. Speak-
ing of the attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, Mrs. Cheney says :

"The rebels had meant to starve the little garrison out
of Fort Sumter."

This is not only untruthful, it is ungrateful. Every day the
people of Charleston sent to Sumter a boat load of food supplies,
fresh meat, fowls, fruits, vegetables, etc.

"After Lee's surrender," says Mrs. Emma Cheney,

264 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 32

"Jefferson Davis lived in a box car because no man honored
him enough to give him hospitality."

This is pure fiction. There was not a man in the South who
would not have felt honored by having Mr. Davis a guest in his
house. There was not a woman who would not willingly have
knelt at his feet and reverently kissed his hand in recognition of
his high and lofty character, as well as with deep and tender
affection and sympathy for the man on whose pure and stainless
name so much malignancy had been poured by his unworthy
enemies.

Mrs, Emma Cheney says:

"Davis disguised himself as a woman and carried a tin
pail."

This also is pure fiction ; but what if he had disguised him-
self as a woman? A claimant to the English crown, when hunt-
ed by his enemies, disguised himself in a woman's garments. As
he was going to Washington City, Lincoln disguised himself, and
yet there was no danger except what his own imagination con-
jured up.

As late as 1902, thirty-seven years after the war ended, a
life of Abraham Lincoln was published in Chicago, which re-
produces, as facts, many malignant lies which have not even a
shadow of truth to rest on. Instance the following, on page 798 :

"The assassination of Abraham Lincoln w^as the culmi-
nation of a series of fiendish schemes in aid of an infamous
rebellion. It was the deadly flower of the rank and poison-
ous weed of treason. The guiding 2nd impelling spirit of
secession nerved and aimed the blow struck by the cowardly

assassin."

On page 799 is this :

"The conspiracy (to assassinate Lincoln) was clearly
traceable to a higher source than Booth and his wretched
accomplices. In the course of the trial positive evidence
was furnished connecting Jacob Thompson, Jefferson Davis
and their associates with President Lincoln's assassination.
This direct evidence is only the keystone of an arch of cir-
cumstances strong as adamant."

On page 802 is the following :

"They (the Southern men) had taken a form congenial
to their 'chivalrous' interests, instigating and aiding piratical

Chap. 33 Facts and Falsehoods. 265

seizure on Lake Erie, robbing a St. Alban's hotel, burning
and wholesale murder at New York, and in broadcast diffu-
sion of pestilence and death throughout Northern cities. Dr.
Blackburn assiduously labored to spread malignant diseases.
What further depth of iniquity needed these men before or-
ganizing the conspiracy to kill Mr. Lincoln? That they did
enter the scheme is proved beyond a doubt. That Jeffer-
son Davis, in whose confidential employment all this while
they were, was consulted as to the plan of assassination, and
gave it his approval, is shown by direct testimony."

On page 803 is the following:

"The expedient of assassination of Mr. Lincoln had
long been a favorite one, beyond doubt, with many of the
Southern traitors."

On page 806 is this :

"The assassination was not the freak of a madcap or a
fanatic ; it was the natural outgrowth of the spirit which led
to rebellion. The barbarous and upstart autocrat who had
deliberately starved thousands of Union prisoners could
have no compunction at seeing a chosen emissary stealthily
murder the ruler of the Nation."

As long as such lies are told it is criminal for the South to
remain silent.

CHAPTER XXXIIL
New England's Two Insanities.

We cannot close this work without some special notice of the
singular mental malady New England brought upon herself, and
which, being contagious, was caught by large numbers of the
Republican party in the 6o's. It is known to all that the Creator
has implanted in the very atoms of the human being, as well as in
the being of animals, certain instincts for the preservation of life
and the perpetuity of the race. Among these instincts is that of
kinship. Our affections first go out to our parents, our children,
our relatives. Next they go out to the people of our own coun-
try, our own color and blood. The white race loves white people
Hiore than it does the yellow, the red or the black. Negroes pre-
fer their own color ; they naturally affiliate with negroes in
preference to whites, Chinese or Japanese. This is the law of
kinship. Any reverse of this law is perversion — perversion is «

266 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap.

33

species of insanity. We have shown that in the year 1796 certain
New England FederaHsts, to attain a certain object they had in
view, set themselves to work to promulgate the gospel of hate
toward the people of the South. By dint of teaching hate the
teachers developed that feeling in their own hearts. As the
te«»ching went on, the feeling increased in intensity until it be-
came an insanity, a monomania utterly beyond the control or the
influence of reason. Finally it came to pass that from this in-
sanity of hate there sprung an insanity of love. The former
was directed toward the white people of the South, the latter to-
ward the negroes. Without evidence from the papers and publi-
cation.s of that day, the white men of this generation will not be
able to believe that New England, as well as large numbers of
ilie P ''publican party, came to admire and respect the negro race
as morally and mentally superior to the white. At first thii
strange insanity only held that the negroes in the South were far
superior in every way to Southern w'hites ; but as time passed the
insanity took on a more violent form, and those so afflicted believed
and taught that as a race the negro was greatly superior, morally
and mentally, to the whole Caucasian race, and not only this, they
came to admire every peculiar quality of the negro, the blackness
of their skins, their woolly hair. Their whole makeup New England
orators and writers dwelt on with a sort of worshiping rapture
and urged intermarriage between blacks and whites, not to ele-
vate the former, but the latter.

Extracts from speeches and papers will throw light on this
subject. In the early stages of his insanity Wendell Phillips
was fond of announcing to his audiences that "negroes are our
acknowledged equals. They are our brothers and sisters." As
time went on Mr. Phillips' distemper became more heated. He
was not satisfied wdth asserting that "negroes are our equals ;" he
made the startling annovmcement that —

"Negroes are our Nobility !"
And began to clamor that special privileges be granted to "our
nobility." He wanted all the land in the Southern States divided
and bestowed on "our nobility" and their heirs forever. What
"our nobility" had done to deserve this rich reward Mr. Phillips
did not explain. Perhaps he thought tlie fact that negroes had
been brought from Africa in a savage state, and had acquired
in the hard school of slavery some of the arts of civilization, fit-
ted them to become a noble class.

Governor Stone of Iowa, in a speech made at Keokuk, Au-
gust 3, 1863, was certainly in the first stages of this insanity

Chap. 33 Facts and Falsehoods. 267

when he said to his audience :

"I hold the Democracy in the utmost contempt. I would
rather eat with a negro, drink with a negro, and sleep with
a negro than with a Copperhead" (meaning a Democrat).

The disease certainly had struck Mr. Morrow B. Lowry,
State Senator of Pennsylvania, when at a large meeting in Phil-
adelphia, in 1863, he said to his audience:

"For all I know the Napoleon of this war may be done
up in a black package. We have no evidence of his being
done up in a white one. The man who talks of elevating a
negro would not have to elevate him very much to make him
equal to himself."

The faithful old New York Independent sorrowfully wailed
over the long delayed coming of the Black Napoleon, which all
the insane negro-worshipers confidentlv looked for.

"God and negroes," said the Independent, "are to
save the country. For two years the white soldiers of this
country have been trying to find a path to victory. The ne-
groes are the final reliance of our Government. Negroes are
the keepers and the saviors of our cause. Negroes are the
forlorn hope of our Republican party."

James Parton, the noted biographer, was strongly touched
with the prevailing disease — insane love of negroes.

"Many a negro," wrote James Parton, in 1863, "stands
in the same kind of moral relation to his master as that in
which Jesus Christ stood to the Jews, and not morally only,
for he stands above his master at a height which the master
can neither see nor understand."

J. W. Phelps, General in the Republican army, thought the
negro race much better adapted to receive Christianity than the
white.

"Christianity," said Phelps, "is planted in the dark rich
soil of the African nature. Negroes are as intelligent and
far more moral than the whites. The slaves appeal to the
moral law, clinging to it as to the very horns of the altar ; he
bears no resentment, he asks for no punishment for his ,
master."

A little work, ably written, titled "Miscegenation," was pub-
lished in 1863 or 1864. Before this work was out a white woman,
Miss Annie Dickinson, called by Republicans "The Modern

268 Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 33

Joan of Arc/' became a convert to the doctrine of intermarriage
between whites and blacks and an eloquent expounder of the
same. Miss Dickinson lectured over the Northern States. It
was said at the time that President Lincohi and his Cabinet at-
tended her lectures in Washington City. Miss Dickinson wrote
a novel called "What Answer?" the purpose of which was to
illustrate the beauty and utility of marriage between negro men
and white women, and negro women and white men. The char-
acters in "What Answer?" are negroes and whites. They fall in
love and marry in a way to affright and disgust people not up to
date on such doctrines. The title, "What Answer?" was sup-
posed to indicate that the author's argument could not be retuted.
On the night Miss Dickinson was to lecture at Cooper Institute,
New York City, she was late in appearing; the impatient audi-
ence was quieted by the distribution of circulars advertising the
new work, "Miscegenation," just published.

George Sala, correspondent of the London Telegraph, was
then in Washington City, and wrote his paper as follows :

"Miss Dickinson comes accredited by persons of high
authority. She is handed to the rostrum by the second per-
sonage in the North. The Speaker of the House is her gen-
tleman usher. The Chief of the State (Lincoln) and his
ministers swell the number of her auditors. She is the god-
dess of Republican idolatry."

February, 1863, the correspondent of the London Times
wrote from New York describing Republican love of the negro
race :

"It has been discovered here," wrote the Times corres-
pondent, "that in many important respects the negro is su-
perior to the whites; that if the latter do not forget their
pride of race, and blood, and color, and amalgamate with
the 'purer and richer blood' of the blacks, they will die out
and wither away in unprolific skinniness. The first to give
tongue to the new doctrine were Theodore Tilton and the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The latter a few months ago
declared that it was good for white women to marry black
men, and that the passion and emotional nature of the
blacks were needed to improve the white race. Mr. Wendell
Phillips has often hinted the same thing."

The London Times of February 5, 1862 or 1863, I am not
certain which, contained copious extracts from "Miscegenation,"
as samples of the love-insanity for the negroes which at that time

Chap. 33 Facts and Falsehoods 269

afflicted the Republican party. I also offer a few extracts from
"Miscegenation :"

"All that is needed," says the author of "Miscegena-
tion," "to make us the finest race on earth is to engraft upon
our stock the negro element which Providence has placed
by our side upon this continent. (The Providence were
New England's slave-stealers who imported negroes from
Africa and sold them to the South's planters). Of all the
rich treasures of blood vouchsafed to us, that of the negro is
the most precious. By mingling with negroes \vc will be-
come powerful, progressive and prosperous. By refusing to
do so we will become feeble, unhealthy, narrow-minded, un-
fit of noble offices of freedom and certain of early decy.
White people are perishing for want of flesh and blood ; they
are dry and shriveled, for lack of the healthful juices of life.
Their cheeks are sunken, their lips are thin and bloodless,
their under jaws narrow and retreating, their noses sharp
and cold, their teeth decayed, their eyes small and watery,
their complexion of a blue and yellow hue, their heads and
shoulders bent forward, hair dry and straggling. The waists
of white women are thin and pinched, telling of sterility and
consumption ; their whole aspect is gaunt and cadaverous ;
they wear spectacles and paint their faces. The social inter-
course between the sexes is acetic, formal, unemotional.
How different is an assembly of negroes ! Every cheek is
plump, the teeth are white, the eyes large and bright, every
form is stalwart, every face wears a smile. American white
men need contact with warm-blooded negresses to fill up the
interstices of their anatomy. I plead for amalgamation, not
for my own individual pleasure, but for my country, for the
cause of progress, for the world, for Christianity. It is a
mean pride unworthy of an enlightened community that will
deny the principle of amalgamation. This principle has
touched a chord in humanity that vibrates with a sweet,
strange, marvelous music, awakening the slumbering in-
stincts of the Nation and the world. It would be a sad mis-
fortune if this war should end without a black general in
command. We want an American Touisant rOverturc. It is
in the eternal fitness of things that the South should be con-
quered by black soldiers. After that the land of the South
must be divided among negroes."

The London correspondent of the Times wrote that paper
that doctrines of this nature were applauded by large audiences

2/0 ' Facts and Falsehoods. Chap. 33

of men and women in the North. Time has proved how little
the Republican party understood the Caucasian or the African
race. No Touisant rOvcrtiire appeared on the scene. No black
general came forward to "fill the eternal fitness of things." On
the contrary, all during the' war the negroes in the South were
amiable servitors, docile and obedient to their white mistresses
while their masters were at the front fighting the armed invaders
of their country.

Among the cartoons of that time were a number illustrative
of the doctrine of "Miscegenation." One with that title is now
in the collection of the New York Historical Society. The Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher is pictured holding the hand of a big black,
buxom negress, whom he is presenting to President Lincoln,
who is bending his head to her as to a queen. The black "lady"
is dressed in the extreme of fashion, showing all her teeth by a
happy grin. Near by sits Horace Greeley, treating to ice cream an-
other big black "lady," arrayed in all her finery. Beyond is a hor-
ribly ugly black man in a chair, holding in his lap a pretty young
white girl, apparently pleased with the situation. Near this
couple is another hideous negro man about to kiss a pretty white
girl.

The doctrine of "Miscegenation" highly delighted Northern
negroes. Frederick Douglas, half white and half black, was es-
pecially pleased. Douglas addressed a large Republican meeting
in Brooklyn, 1863, on the subject of amalgamation. He said:

"There is not now much prejudice against colored men. A
few days ago a white lady asked me to walk down Broadway
with her, and insisted on taking my arm ; everyone we met
stared at us as if we were curious animals. By and by you
will get over this nonsense. (Cheers). You ought to see me
in London walking down Regent street with a white lady on
each arm, and nobody stared at us. And it will soon be so
here, and then we will all be the nobler and better."

The London Times during the war of the 6o's published in
its columns extracts from a pamphlet issued in the North, which
boldly asserted the lie that —

"The first love of the beautiful young daughters of the
proud planters of the South was for one of their father's
negro slaves. The mothers and daughters," said this in-
sane writer, "of the Southern aristocracy are thrilled ivith a
strange delight by daily contact with their dusky servitors."

Chap. ^;^ Facts and Falsehoods. 271

The mothers and daughters of the South, when chancing to
see insane stuff of this nature, passed it by as the kniacy of a foul
and distempered mind.

With this I rest the case which, ere long, will be tried in
Posteritj'-'s Court — the South vs. the Repubhcan party of the 6o's.

And as a last thought, I offer the reader the prophetic lines
written by that inspired poet. Father Ryan, of Alalmnia :

"There is grandeur in graves, there is glory in gloom.
For out of the gloom future brightness is born.
And after the night comes the sunrise of morn.
And the graves of the dead, with the grass overgrown.
Shall yet form the footstool of Liberty's throne.
And each single wreck in the warpath of Might
Shall yet be a rock in the Temple of Right."

.Note.

Numbers of soldiers in the United States armies in

different wars:

Revolutionary, 1775-1783 309,781

Northwest Indian War, 1790-95 8.983

Tripoli War — Naval, 1801-5 3,330

England, 1812-15 576,622

First Seminole, Florida, 1817-18 7,91 1

Second Seminole, Florida, 1835-43 41,122

Third Seminole, Florida, 1856-58 3,68i

Black Hawk War, 1831-32 6,465

Creek War, 1836-37 13418

Aroostook War, 1838-39 i.SO'^

Mexican, April, 1846, July, 1848 1 12.230

1,085,043
War upon the South, 1861-65 2,772,408

Excess 1,687,365

From above it will be seen the United States employed in its
four years' of war upon the South 1,687,365 more soldiers than in
all its thirty-six years of war with England, Tripoli, Mexico and
the Indian tribes.

m